King Lear

IntroductionThe following version of King Lear is based on
the text in the authoritative 1914 Oxford Edition of
Shakespeare's works, edited by W. J. Craig. The text numbers
the lines, including those with stage directions such as
"Enter" and "Exit." Annotations (notes and definitions)
appear in boldfaced type within the text.
Characters

King Lear: King of England
and the main character, or protagonist. He is a
headstrong old man who is blind to his weaknesses and
misjudges his three daughters, believing that the two
evil daughters have his best interests at heart and that
his good and selfless daughter opposes him. He undergoes
great suffering that opens his eyes and ennobles his
character. Whether there was a historical Lear is
uncertain.Goneril, Regan: Selfish, greedy
daughters of Lear who pretend to love him when he
announces that he will gives them shares of his kingdom.
Later, they treat him cruelly.Cordelia: Loyal and unselfish
daughter of Lear. He disowns her after confusing her
honesty with insolence. She continues to love her father
in spite of his rejection of her.Duke of Burgundy: Suitor of
Cordelia. He decides to reject her after Lear disowns
her.King of France: Suitor of
Cordelia. He marries her even though Lear has disowned
her.Duke of Cornwall: Regan's
husband, who is just as cruel as she is.Duke of Albany: Goneril's
husband. He turns against her when he realizes that she
is an evil schemer.Earl of Kent: True and honest
friend of Lear who remains loyal even after the king
banishes him. To continue serving the king, he wears a
disguise and calls himself “Caius.”Earl of Gloucester: Old man who
suffers from many of the same faults as Lear. Like Lear,
he is old and self-important; like Lear, he misjudges
his children and undergoes suffering that makes him a
better man. However, Gloucester is less forceful and
demanding than Lear and more given to compromise. Such
qualities make him a foil of Lear.Edgar: Gloucester's loyal son
and heir. He resembles Cordelia in his loyalty to hid
father.Edmund: Gloucester's evil
bastard son. He resembles Goneril and Regan in his
disloyalty to his father.Fool: Jester loyal to Lear and
Cordelia. The fool is a walking paradox—that is, he is
the wisest character in play in that he is the only
character who understands the motivations of Lear, his
daughters, and other characters. He acts as a kind of
mirror, reflecting Lear’s faults and weaknesses.Curan: Courtier.Old Man: Tenant of Gloucester.Doctor: Physician who attends
Lear after the old king arrives at Dover.Oswald: Villainous steward of
Goneril.Captain: Employee of Edmund.Gentleman: Attendant of
Cordelia.HeraldFirst Servant, Second Servant, Third
Servant: Servants of the Duke of Cornwall.Monsier
La Far: Marshal of France. He has no speaking
part.Minor Characters: Knights of
Lear's train, captains, messengers, soldiers, and
attendants.

Act 1, Scene 1

A room of State in KING
LEAR’S palace.Enter KENT, GLOUCESTER,
and EDMUND.
KENT: I thought the king had more affected [favored] the Duke of Albany than
Cornwall.
GLOUCESTER: It did always seem so to us; but now, in the
division of the
kingdom, it appears not which of the dukes he values most; for
equalities are so weighed that curiosity in neither can make
choice of
either’s moiety. [but
now . . . moiety: But now you
can't tell which duke he favors, for he divided the kingdom so
equally that a close examination (curiosity, line 4) cannot reveal who received
the bigger share (moiety).]
KENT: Is not this your son, my lord?
5
GLOUCESTER: His breeding, sir, hath been at my charge: I
have so often
blushed to acknowledge him, that now I am brazed to it.
[I reared him but have often blushed to acknowledge him. Now I am
hardened to (or used to) doing
so. (Brazed, or brazen, means hardened like brass.)]
KENT: I cannot conceive you. [I don't
know what you mean]
GLOUCESTER: Sir, this young fellow’s mother could; whereupon
she grew
round-wombed, and had, indeed, sir, a son for her cradle ere she
had a
husband for her bed. Do you smell a fault? [Sir
. . . fault: Sir, this young
fellow's mother could conceive him. She became pregnant and had a
son
for her cradle before she had a husband for her bed. Do you smell
some
wrongdoing?]
KENT: I cannot wish the fault undone, the issue of it being
so proper. [the
issue . . . proper: The child having turned out to be a proper
young man.] GLOUCESTER: But I
have a son, sir, by order of law [but I also have a legitimate
son], some year
elder than
this, who yet is no dearer [no more special] in my account: though this
knave came
somewhat saucily into the world before he was sent for, yet was
his
mother fair; there was good sport at his making, and the whoreson
must
be acknowledged. Do you know this noble gentleman,
Edmund?
10
EDMUND: No, my lord.
GLOUCESTER: [He is] My Lord of Kent: remember
him hereafter as my honourable friend.
EDMUND: My services to your lordship.
KENT: I must love you, and sue [take
steps] to know
you better.
EDMUND: Sir, I shall study deserving [study
what it takes to deserve your attention].
15
GLOUCESTER: He hath been out [away] nine yers, and away he
shall again. The king is coming.
Sennet. Enter LEAR, CORNWALL, ALBANY, GONERIL, REGAN,
CORDELIA, and attendants.[Sennet:
Sounding of trumpets]
LEAR: Attend the Lords of France and Burgundy,
Gloucester.
GLOUCESTER: I shall, my liege. [Exeunt GLOUCESTER and
EDMUND. [Exeunt:
The characters specified leave the stage.]LEAR: Meantime we
shall express our darker [serious] purpose.
20
Give me the map there. Know that we have divided
In three our kingdom; and ’tis our fast [decided;
steadfast]
intent
To shake all cares and business from our age,
Conferring them on younger strengths, while we
Unburden’d crawl toward death. Our son of
Cornwall,
25
And you, our no less loving son of Albany,
We have this hour a constant will to publish
Our daughters’ several dowers [bequests; inheritances], that future
strife
May be prevented now. The princes, France and
Burgundy,
Great rivals in our youngest daughter’s love,
30
Long in our court have made their amorous
sojourn,
And here are to be answer’d. Tell me, my
daughters,—
Since now we will divest us both of rule,
Interest of territory, cares of state,— [Since
. . . state: Since I will give up my rule, my lands, and my cares
of state]
Which of you shall we say doth love us most?
35
That we our largest bounty may extend
Where nature doth with merit challenge . Goneril,[That
we . . . challenge: That I may give the largest share to the
daughter with the greatest merit]
Our eldest-born, speak first.
GONERIL: Sir, I love you more than words can wield the
matter;
Dearer than eye-sight, space, and liberty;
40
Beyond what can be valu’d, rich or rare;
No less than life, with grace, health, beauty,
honour;
As much as child e’er lov’d, or father found;
A love that makes breath poor and speech unable;
Beyond all manner of so much I love you.
45
CORDELIA: [Aside.] What shall Cordelia do? Love, and
be silent. [Aside:
Stage direction indicating that a character is speaking only to
himself
(or herself) or is whispering or speaking softly to another
character
so that others cannot hear what is being said.]
the other characters cannot hear what Cordelia is saying.]
LEAR: Of all these bounds [boundaries], even from this line to
this,
With shadowy forests and with champains [open
lands; open country] rich’d,
With plenteous rivers and wide-skirted meads,
We make thee lady: to thine and Albany’s issue [children]
50
Be this perpetual. What says our second
daughter,
Our dearest Regan, wife to Cornwall? Speak.
REGAN: I am made of that self metal as my
sister,
And prize me at her worth. In my true heart
I find she names my very deed of love;
55
Only she comes too short: that I profess
Myself an enemy to all other joys
Which the most precious square of sense
possesses
And find I am alone felicitate [made happy]
In your dear highness’ love.
60
CORDELIA: [Aside.] Then, poor Cordelia!
And yet not so; since, I am sure, my love’s
More richer than my tongue. [my
love's . . . tongue: My love for my father cannot be expressed in
words.]
LEAR: To thee and thine, hereditary ever,
Remain this ample third of our fair kingdom,
65
No less in space, validity, and pleasure,
Than that conferr’d on Goneril. Now, our joy,
Although our last, not least; to whose young
love
The vines of France and milk of Burgundy
Strive to be interess’d; what can you say to draw
70[interess'd:
Interested. Here, the word can be interpreted to mean bound up with or attached to.]
A third more opulent than your sisters? Speak.
CORDELIA: Nothing, my lord.
LEAR: Nothing?
CORDELIA: Nothing.
LEAR: Nothing will come of nothing: speak
again.
75
CORDELIA: Unhappy that I am, I cannot
heave
My heart into my mouth: I love your majesty
According to my bond [obligation; duty as a daughter] nor more nor
less.
LEAR: How, how, Cordelia! mend your speech a
little,
Lest you may mar your fortunes.
80
CORDELIA: Good my lord [my good lord],
You have begot me, bred me, lov’d me: I
Return those duties back as are right fit,
Obey you, love you, and most honour you.
Why have my sisters husbands [why do my sisters have
husbands], if
they say
85
They love you all? Haply [perhaps], when I shall
wed,
That lord whose hand must take my plight shall
carry
Half my love with him, half my care and duty:
Sure I shall never marry like my sisters,
To love my father all [entirely].
90
LEAR: But goes thy heart with this? [Is this
how you really feel?]
CORDELIA: Ay, good my lord.
LEAR: So young, and so untender?
CORDELIA: So young, my lord, and true.
LEAR: Let it be so; thy truth then be thy dower:
95
For, by the sacred radiance of the sun,
The mysteries of Hecate [in Greek mythology, an underworld
goddess who was the protector of witches] and the
night,
By all the operation of the orbs
From whom we do exist and cease to be,
Here I disclaim all my paternal care,
100
Propinquity [kinship] and property of blood,
And as a stranger to my heart and me
Hold thee from this for ever. The barbarous Scythian, [Scythian:
One of the nomadic people of Scythia, an ancient land north of the
Black Sea]
Or he that makes his generation messes [food]
To gorge his appetite, shall to my bosom
105
Be as well neighbour’d, pitied, and reliev’d,
As thou my sometime daughter.
KENT: Good my liege,— [My good lord—]
LEAR: Peace [be silent], Kent!
Come not between the dragon and his wrath.
110
I lov’d her most, and thought to set my rest [retirement]
On her kind nursery [care]. Hence [go away], and avoid my
sight!
So be my grave my peace [I will know peace only in the
grave], as here
I give
Her father’s heart from her! Call France [king of
France].
Who stirs? [Isn't anyone going to do my bidding? Why are
you standing there?] 115
Call Burgundy. Cornwall and Albany,
With my two daughters’ dowers digest the third;
Let pride, which she calls plainness, marry her.
I do invest you [Cornwall and Albany] jointly with my
power,
Pre-eminence, and all the large effects
120
That troop with majesty. Ourself by monthly
course,
With reservation of a hundred knights,
By you to be sustain’d, shall our abode
Make with you by due turn. Only we shall retain [Ourself
. . . due turn: Accompanied
by a hundred nights, I will reside with you on a monthly basis—one
month with Cornwall and Regan, the other month with Albany and
Goneril.]
The name and all th’ addition [respect and privileges] to a
king;
125
The sway, revenue, execution of the rest,
Beloved sons, be yours: which to confirm,
This coronet part between you. [This
. . . you: Share this small crown between you.]
KENT: Royal Lear,
Whom I have ever honour’d as my king,
130
Lov’d as my father, as my master follow’d,
As my great patron thought on in my prayers,—
LEAR: The bow is bent and drawn; make from the shaft. [The
bow . . . shaft: You are annoying
me so much that my anger is like the arrow in a drawn bow. I'll
shoot
it if you don't leave my presence.]
KENT: Let it fall rather, though the fork
invade
The region of my heart: be Kent unmannerly
135
When Lear is mad. What wouldst thou do, old man?
Think’st thou that duty shall have dread to
speak
When power to flattery bows? To plainness honour’s
bound
When majesty falls to folly. Reserve thy state;
And, in thy best consideration, check
140
This hideous rashness: answer my life my
judgment, [Let
it fall. . . rashness: Go ahead
and shoot, even though the arrow will
pierce my heart. It is my duty to be annoying when you do insane
things. Do you think I am afraid to speak up, that I will flatter
you by
doing everything you command? I am bound by honor to protest your
actions when they are foolish? Take time to consider what you are
doing. It is rash.]
Thy youngest daughter does not love thee least;
Nor are those empty-hearted whose low sound
Reverbs no hollowness. [Nor
are . . . hollowness: Cordelia's abrupt, quiet manner does not
mean she has no heart.]
LEAR: Kent, on thy
life, no more.
145
KENT: My life I never held but as a pawn
To wage against thine enemies; nor fear to lose
it,
Thy safety being the motive.
LEAR: Out of my sight!
KENT: See better, Lear; and let me still
remain
150
The true blank of thine eye. [true
blank: target; bull's-eye. Kent is telling Lear to focus his
attention on him, for Kent is giving the king good advice.]
LEAR: Now, by Apollo,—
[Apollo: In Greek and Roman mythology, the god of prophecy, music,
poetry, medicine, and the sun.]
KENT: Now, by Apollo, king,
Thou swear’st thy gods in vain.
LEAR: O vassal!
miscreant! [Laying his hand on his sword.
155[vassal:
A subordinate; a slave.]
ALBANY AND CORNWALL: Dear sir, forbear.
KENT: Do;
Kill thy physician, and the fee bestow
Upon the foul disease. Revoke thy gift;
Or, whilst I can vent clamour from my throat,
160
I’ll tell thee thou dost evil. [Kill
. . . dost evil: Go ahead and kill me, the man who is trying to
cure you of your mad behavior. Give the physician's fee to the
disease
that possesses you. Oh, please take back your bequests. If you
don't, I'll condemn you as an evil man.]
LEAR: Hear me, recreant! [recreant:
Disloyal person; coward.]
On thine allegiance, hear me!
Since thou hast sought to make us break our
vow,—
Which we durst [past of dare] never yet,—and, with strain’d pride
165
To come betwixt [between] our sentence and our
power,—
Which nor our nature nor our place can bear,—
Our potency made good, take thy reward.
Five days we do allot thee for provision
To shield thee from diseases of the world;
170
And, on the sixth, to turn thy hated back
Upon our kingdom: if, on the tenth day following
Thy banish’d trunk be found in our dominions,
The moment is thy death. Away! By Jupiter [in Roman
mythology, the king of the gods]
This shall not be revok’d.
175[Since
thou . . . revok'd: Because you
are trying to make me cancel
my promised bequests—and I have never gone back on my word—and
because
I cannot
bear your prideful interference, I have decided to banish you from
my
kingdom. You have five days to gather provisions to sustain you.
On the
sixth day, you will leave. If you are ever discovered on any of my
lands, you will be put to death. Leave me! This sentence will
never be
revoked.]
KENT: Fare thee well, king; sith [since] thus thou wilt
appear,
Freedom lives hence, and banishment is here.
[To CORDELIA.] The gods to their dear shelter take thee,
maid,
That justly think’st, and hast most rightly
said!
[To REGAN and GONERIL.] And your large speeches may your
deeds
approve,
180
That good effects may spring from words of love.
Thus Kent, O princes! bids you all adieu [good-bye in French];
He’ll shape his old course in a country new.
[Exit.

Flourish. Re-enter GLOUCESTER, with FRANCE, BURGUNDY, and
attendants.
GLOUCESTER: Here’s France and Burgundy, my noble
lord.
185
LEAR: My Lord of Burgundy,
We first address toward you, who with this king
Hath rivall’d for our daughter [Cordelia]. What, in the
least,
Will you require in present dower [dowry] with her,
Or cease your quest of love?
190
BURGUNDY: Most royal majesty,
I crave no more than hath your highness offer’d,
Nor will you tender less.
LEAR: Right noble Burgundy,
When she was dear to us we did hold her so,
195
But now her price is fall’n. [Lear will not offer a
dowry.] Sir,
there she stands:
If aught [anything] within that little-seeming
substance,
Or all of it, with our displeasure piec’d,
And nothing more, may fitly like your Grace,
She’s there, and she is yours.
200
BURGUNDY: I know no answer.
LEAR: Will you, with those infirmities she
owes,
Unfriended, new-adopted to our hate,
Dower’d with our curse, and stranger’d with our
oath,
Take her, or leave her?
205
BURGUNDY: Pardon me, royal sir;
Election makes not up on such conditions. [Election
. . . conditions: I cannot choose her under such conditions.] LEAR: Then leave
her, sir; for, by the power that made me,
I tell you all her wealth.—[To FRANCE.] For you, great
king,
I would not from your love make such a stray
210
To match you where I hate [to offer you my hateful daughter]; therefore, beseech
you
To avert your liking a more worthier way
Than on a wretch whom nature is asham’d
Almost to acknowledge hers.
FRANCE: This is most
strange,
215
That she, who even but now was your best object,
The argument of your praise, balm of your age,
The best, the dearest, should in this trice [moment] of time
Commit a thing so monstrous, to dismantle
So many folds of favour. Sure, her offence
220
Must be of such unnatural degree
That monsters it, or your fore-vouch’d [previously
asserted]
affection
Fall into taint; which to believe of her,
Must be a faith that reason without miracle
Could never plant in me.
225[to
believe . . . plant in me: I cannot believe that she is so
unworthy.]
CORDELIA: I yet beseech your majesty—
If for I want that glib and oily art
To speak and purpose not; since what I well
intend,
I’ll do ’t before I speak—that you make known [If
for I . . . before I speak:
Because I don't like to preface my action with words meant to
flatter
my listeners, I simply go ahead and act before I speak.]
It is no vicious blot nor other foulness,
230
No unchaste action, or dishonour’d step,
That hath depriv’d me of your grace and favour, [It
is no . . . favour: I have not done anything vicious, foul, or
unchaste that has caused you to look down on me.]
But even for want of that for which I am richer,
A still-soliciting eye, and such a tongue
That I am glad I have not, though not to have it
235
Hath lost me in your liking. [But
even . . . liking: Although I
lack the things that would enhance my circumstances—an eye for
riches
and a smooth-talking tongue—I am glad that I don't have them even
though their absence has lowered me in your esteem.]
LEAR: Better thou
Hadst not been born than not to have pleas’d me
better.
FRANCE: Is it but this? a tardiness in
nature
Which often leaves the history unspoke
240
That it intends to do? My Lord of Burgundy, [Is
it but . . . to do: Is that all
that this is about: a tendency in her nature to speak plainly
without
telling the whole story behind her feelings?]
What say you to the lady? Love is not love
When it is mingled with regards that stand
Aloof from the entire point. Will you have her?
She is herself a dowry. [She herself is great prize. There
is no need for a dowry].
245
BURGUNDY: Royal Lear,
Give but that portion which yourself propos’d,
And here I take Cordelia by the hand,
Duchess of Burgundy.
LEAR: Nothing: I have sworn; I am firm.
250
BURGUNDY: I am sorry, then, you [Cordelia] have so lost a
father
That you must lose a husband.
CORDELIA: Peace be with Burgundy!
Since that respects of fortune are his love,
I shall not be his wife.
255
FRANCE: Fairest Cordelia, that art most rich, being
poor;
Most choice, forsaken; and most lov’d, despis’d!
Thee and thy virtues here I seize upon:
Be it lawful I take up what’s cast away.
Gods, gods! ’tis strange that from their cold’st
neglect
260
My love should kindle to inflam’d respect. [Gods
. . . respect: By the gods, it
is strange that Cordelia's rejection by Lear and Burgundy has
enkindled
in me love and respect for her.]
Thy dowerless daughter, king, thrown to my
chance,
Is queen of us, of ours, and our fair France:
Not all the dukes of waterish Burgundy
Shall buy this unpriz’d precious maid of me.
265
Bid them farewell, Cordelia, though unkind:
Thou losest here, a better where to find. [Thou
. . . find: You lose her in England, but a better life awaits you
in France.]
LEAR: Thou hast her, France; let her be thine, for
we
Have no such daughter, nor shall ever see
That face of hers again, therefore be gone
270
Without our grace, our love, our benison [blessing].
Come, noble Burgundy. [Flourish. Exeunt LEAR,
BURGUNDY,
CORNWALL, ALBANY, GLOUCESTER, and attendants. [Exeunt:
The characters specified leave the stage.]
FRANCE: Bid farewell to your sisters.
CORDELIA: The jewels of our father, with wash’d
eyes
Cordelia leaves you: I know you what you are [I know
you for what you are, devious and greedy];
275
And like a sister am most loath to call
Your faults as they are nam’d. Use well our
father:
To your professed bosoms I commit him:
But yet, alas! stood I within his grace,
I would prefer him to a better place.
280[stood
I . . . place: If I still stood
in his good graces, I would take it upon myself to give him the
best of
care in his old age.]
So farewell to you both.
REGAN: Prescribe not us our duties. [Prescribe
. . . duties: Don't tell us how to care for him.] GONERIL: Let your
study
Be to content your lord, who hath receiv’d you
At fortune’s alms; you have obedience scanted,
285
And well are worth the want that you have wanted. [Let
your . . . wanted: You should
focus on making your lord, the king of France, content. He has
taken
you in as a charity case. Because you have not obeyed your father,
you
don't deserve to receive anything from him.]
CORDELIA: Time shall unfold what plighted cunning
hides;
Who covers faults, at last shame them derides. [Time
will reveal the deceit you hide in your heart. Whoever covers
faults will eventually meet with shame.]
Well may you prosper!
FRANCE: Come, my fair
Cordelia. [Exit FRANCE and CORDELIA.
290
GONERIL: Sister, it is not little I have to say of what most
nearly appertains to us both. I think our father will hence [leave;
go forth]
to-night.
REGAN: That’s most certain, and with you; next month with
us.
GONERIL: You see how full of changes his age is; the
observation we have made of it hath not been little: he always
loved
our sister most; and with what poor judgment he hath now cast her
off
appears too grossly [appears obvious; appears plain to
see].
REGAN: ’Tis the infirmity of his age; yet he hath ever but
slenderly known himself. [yet
he . . . himself: Yet he has never really known himself.]
GONERIL: The best and soundest of his time hath been but
rash;
then, must we look to receive from his age, not alone the
imperfections
of long-engraffed condition, but, therewithal the unruly
waywardness
that infirm and choleric years bring with them.
295[The
best . . . with them: When he was
at his best in his younger days, he was nevertheless rash.
Advancing
age has only worsened his faults. So now we must deal with a
cranky,
unpredictable old man.]
REGAN: Such unconstant starts [tantrums] are we like to have from
him as this of Kent’s banishment.
GONERIL: There is further compliment of leave-taking between
France and him. Pray you, let us sit together: if our father carry
authority with such dispositions as he bears, this last surrender
of
his will but offend us. [There
is further . . . offend us:
There is to be a sendoff ceremony for the French king when he
departs. Let's sit down and discuss what has come to pass. If our
father continues to use his kingly authority even though he has
retired
from the throne, he will make trouble for us.]
REGAN: We shall further think on ’t.
GONERIL: We must do something, and i’ the heat.
[Exeunt. [We
must . . . heat: We must do something before our hot emotions
cool.][Exeunt:
Everyone leaves the stage.]

Act
1, Scene 2

A hall in the EARL OF
GLOUCESTER'S castle.
Enter EDMUND, with a letter.

EDMUND: Thou, Nature, art my goddess; to thy
law
My services are bound. Wherefore should I
Stand in the plague of custom, and permit
5
The curiosity of nations to deprive me,
For that I am some twelve or fourteen moonshines
Lag of a brother? Why bastard? wherefore base? When my dimensions are as
well compact,
My mind as generous, and my shape as true,
10
As honest madam’s issue? Why brand they us [Thou,
Nature . . . madam's issue:
Nature, you are my goddess; you are the law that governs me, not
the
law made by men. Why should I be looked down upon by the law of
men,
which deprives me of my rights just because I was born twelve or
fourteen months after my brother, Edgar? Why do they call me a
bastard?
Why do they say I am base when I have a mind and body that are the
equal of any man born within wedlock?]
With base? with baseness? bastardy? base, base?
Who in the lusty stealth of nature take
More composition and fierce quality
Than doth, within a dull, stale, tired bed,
15
Go to the creating a whole tribe of fops,
Got ’tween asleep and wake? Well then, [Who
in . . . wake: Because we
illegitimate children were conceived in a moment of lustful
passion, we
have more fire and ferocity in us than those dandies who were
conceived
in a dull, tired marriage bed when the husband and wife were
half-asleep.]
Legitimate Edgar [Edmund's brother, who was born in
wedlock and is therefore the legal heir of his father's property], I must have your
land:
Our father’s love is to [is as much to] the bastard
Edmund
As to the legitimate. Fine word, ‘legitimate!’
20
Well, my legitimate, if this letter speed,
And my invention thrive, Edmund the base
Shall top the legitimate:—I grow, I prosper;
Now, gods, stand up for bastards!
Enter GLOUCESTER.
25

GLOUCESTER: Kent banished thus! And France [the
ruler of France]
in choler [anger] parted!
And the king gone to-night! subscrib’d [signed
away] his
power!
Confin’d to exhibition [confined to being a figurehead
king]! All this
done
Upon the gad [whim; moment; foolish action]! Edmund, how now! what
news?
EDMUND: So please your lordship, none. [Putting up the
letter.
30
GLOUCESTER: Why so earnestly seek you to put up that
letter?
EDMUND: I know no news, my lord.
GLOUCESTER: What paper were you reading?
EDMUND: Nothing, my lord.
GLOUCESTER: No? What needed then that terrible dispatch of
it
into your pocket? the quality of nothing hath not such need to
hide
itself. Let’s see; come; if it be nothing, I shall not need
spectacles. 35
EDMUND: I beseech you, sir, pardon me; it is a letter from
my
brother that I have not all o’er-read, and for so much as I have
perused, I find it not fit for your
o’er-looking.
GLOUCESTER: Give me the letter, sir.
EDMUND: I shall offend, either to detain [retain] or give it. The
contents, as in part I understand them, are to
blame.
GLOUCESTER: Let’s see, let’s see.
EDMUND: I hope, for my brother’s justification, he wrote
this
but as an essay or taste of my virtue.
40
GLOUCESTER:

[reads from the letter] This
policy and reverence of age makes the world
bitter to the best of our times; keeps our fortunes from us till
our
oldness cannot relish them. I begin to find an idle and fond
bondage in
the oppression of aged tyranny, who sways, not as it hath power,
but as
it is suffered. Come to me, that of this I may speak more. If our
father would sleep till I waked him, you should enjoy half his
revenue
for ever, and live the beloved of your brother, Edgar.[Meaning: It is not a good policy
to
revere the elderly so much. Such a policy keeps our inheritance
from us
until we ourselves are old and cannot enjoy it. To tell the
truth, I am
beginning to feel like a slave under the oppression of the
elderly. They
oppress us because we let them. Come to me to discuss this
matter. If
our father died, you would get half his estate and enjoy my
undying
fraternal love.]

—Hum! Conspiracy!
‘Sleep till I waked him, you should enjoy half his revenue.’—My
son
Edgar! Had he a hand to write this? a heart and brain to breed it
in?
When came this to you? Who brought it?
EDMUND: It was not brought me, my lord; there’s the cunning
of it; I found it thrown in at the casement [window] of my
closet [room; private chamber].
GLOUCESTER: You know the character [handwriting] to be your
brother’s?
EDMUND: If the matter were good, my lord, I durst [past of
dare] swear it
were his; but, in respect of that, I would fain [likely] think it were
not.
GLOUCESTER: It is his.
45
EDMUND: It is his hand, my lord; but I hope his heart is not
in the contents.
GLOUCESTER: Hath he never heretofore sounded you in this
business?
EDMUND: Never, my lord: but I have often heard him maintain
it to be fit that, sons at perfect age, and fathers declined, the
father should be as ward to the son, and the son manage his
revenue.
GLOUCESTER: O villain, villain! His very opinion in the
letter!
Abhorred villain! Unnatural, detested, brutish villain! worse than
brutish! Go, sirrah, seek him; I’ll apprehend him. Abominable
villain!
Where is he?
EDMUND: I do not well know, my lord. If it shall please you
to suspend your indignation against my brother till you can derive
from
him better testimony of his intent, you shall run a certain
course;
where, if you violently proceed against him, mistaking his
purpose, it
would make a great gap in your own honour, and shake in pieces the
heart of his obedience. I dare pawn down my life for him, that he
hath
writ this to feel [test] my affection to your
honour, and to no other pretence
of danger.
50
GLOUCESTER: Think you so?
EDMUND: If your honour judge it meet, I will place you where
you shall hear us confer of this, and by an auricular [auditory] assurance have
your satisfaction; and that without any further delay than this
very
evening.
GLOUCESTER: He cannot be such a monster—
EDMUND: Nor is not, sure. [I'm sure he is not.]
GLOUCESTER: —to his father, that so tenderly and entirely
loves
him. Heaven and earth! Edmund, seek him out; wind me into him [talk
about me with him], I pray
you: frame the business after your own wisdom. I would unstate
myself
to be in a due resolution.
55[unstate
. . . resolution: Forfeit my status and property to find out
what's going on]
EDMUND: I will seek him, sir, presently; convey the business
as I shall find means, and acquaint you withal.
GLOUCESTER: These late eclipses in the sun and moon portend
no
good to us: though the wisdom of nature can reason it thus and
thus,
yet nature finds itself scourged by the sequent effects.[These
late . . . effects: The recent
eclipses are a bad omen for us. True, men of learning offer
reasons not
to fear them. Nevertheless, unwelcome events always follow them.
(There
were eclipses of the sun and moon in the fall of 1605, at about
the
time that Shakespeare was preparing King Lear.)]
Love cools,
friendship falls off, brothers divide: in cities, mutinies; in
countries, discord; in palaces, treason; and the bond cracked
between
son and father. This villain of mine [Edgar] comes under the prediction;
there’s son against father: the king falls from bias of nature [behaves
strangely];
there’s
father against child. We have seen the best of our time:
machinations,
hollowness, treachery, and all ruinous disorders, follow us
disquietly
to our graves. Find out this villain, Edmund; it shall lose thee
nothing: do it carefully. And the noble and true-hearted Kent
banished!
his offence, honesty! ’Tis strange! [Exit.
EDMUND: This is the excellent foppery [foolishness;
stupidity] of
the world, that,
when we are sick in fortune,—often the surfeit [excess] of our own behaviour,—we
make guilty of our disasters the sun, the moon, and the stars; as
if we
were villains by necessity, fools by heavenly compulsion, knaves,
thieves, and treachers [pronounced TRETCH erz: deceivers;
cheaters; one given to treachery] by spherical predominance [by the
influence of heavenly bodies], drunkards, liars, and
adulterers by an enforced obedience of planetary influence; and
all
that we are evil in, by a divine thrusting on: an admirable
evasion of
whoremaster man, to lay his goatish disposition to the charge of a
star! My father compounded with my mother under the dragon’s tail
[star or constellation], and
my nativity was under ursa major [star constellation; Great Bear in English]; so that it follows I am
rough and
lecherous. 'Sfoot! [by the foot of Christ!] I should have been
that I am had the maidenliest
star in the firmament twinkled on my bastardizing.
[I would be the way I am regardless of the position or
movement of the stars.] Edgar—
Enter EDGAR.
and pat he comes, like the catastrophe of the old comedy [like the
ending of a comedy with a predictable outcome]: my cue is
villanous [villainous] melancholy [I will now take on a mood of
villainous melancholy], with a sigh like Tom o’ Bedlam [madman
from a London asylum]. O, these eclipses
do portend these divisions! Fa, sol, la, mi. [Edmund
apparently sings music notes.]
60
EDGAR: How now, brother Edmund! What serious contemplation
are you in?
EDMUND: I am thinking, brother, of a prediction I read this
other day, what should follow these eclipses.
EDGAR: Do you busy yourself with that?
EDMUND: I promise you the effects he writes of succeed
unhappily; as of unnaturalness between the child and the parent;
death,
dearth [food shortage; lack or need of something else], dissolutions of ancient
amities [friendships]; divisions in state; menaces
and maledictions [curses] against king and nobles;
needless diffidences [diffidence: (1) distrust; (2)
timidity; lack of self-confidence; hesitancy],
banishment of friends, dissipation of cohorts, nuptial [having
to do with marriage] breaches, and I
know not what.
EDGAR: How long have you been a sectary astronomical [member
of a sect of astrologers]?
65
EDMUND: Come, come; when saw you my father
last?
EDGAR: The night gone by.
EDMUND: Spake you with him?
EDGAR: Ay, two hours together.
EDMUND: Parted you in good terms? Found you no displeasure
in
him by word or countenance?
70
EDGAR: None at all.
EDMUND: Bethink yourself wherein you may have offended him;
and at my entreaty forbear his presence till some little time hath
qualified the heat of his displeasure, which at this instant so
rageth
in him that with the mischief of your person it would scarcely
allay. [Bethink
. . . allay: Try to think how
you may have offended him. He's angry with you. So stay away from
him
until he cools off. Right now, he is so angry that even if he
struck
you or injured you, he would still be angry.]
EDGAR: Some villain hath done me wrong.
EDMUND: That’s my fear. I pray you have a continent
[restrained] forbearance till the speed of his rage goes slower, and,
as I say,
retire with me to my lodging, from whence I will fitly bring you
to
hear my lord speak. Pray you, go; there’s my key. If you do stir
abroad, go armed.
EDGAR: Armed, brother!
75
EDMUND: Brother, I advise you to the best; go armed; I am no
honest man if there be any good meaning toward you; I have told
you
what I have seen and heard; but faintly, nothing like the image
and
horror of it; pray you, away.
EDGAR: Shall I hear from you anon [soon]?
EDMUND: I do serve you in this business. [Exit
EDGAR.
A credulous [gullible; too quick to believe someone] father, and a brother
noble,
Whose nature is so far from doing harms
80
That he suspects none; on whose foolish honesty
My practices ride easy! I see the business.
Let me, if not by birth, have lands by wit [scheming]:
All with me ’s [me is] meet [suitable;
acceptable]
that I can fashion fit. [Exit.

Act
1, Scene 3

A room in the DUKE OF
ALBANY’S palace.
Enter GONERIL and OSWALD, her steward.
GONERIL: Did my father strike my gentleman [servant;
attendant] for
chiding [reprimanding; scolding] of his fool [court
jester]?
OSWALD: Ay, madam.
GONERIL: By day and night he wrongs me; every
hour
5
He flashes into one gross crime or other,
That sets us all at odds: I’ll not endure it:
His knights grow riotous, and himself upbraids
us
On every trifle. When he returns from hunting
I will not speak with him; say I am sick:
10
If you come slack of former services,[If
you . . . services: If you are slack in serving him]
You shall do well; the fault of it I’ll answer.
OSWALD: He’s coming, madam; I hear him. [Horns within.[Horns
within: Horns offstage]
GONERIL: Put on what weary negligence you
please,
You and your fellows; I’d have it come to
question:
15If he distaste it, let him [go] to my
sister,
Whose mind and mine, I know, in that are one,
Not to be over-rul’d. Idle old man,
That still would manage those authorities
That he hath given away! Now, by my life,
20
Old fools are babes again, and must be us’d [handled]
With checks as flatteries, when they are seen abus’d.[Put
on . . .
abus'd: I want you and
the other servants to neglect him to the point that he complains
to me.
Then I'll send him to my sister, who thinks the way I do on this
matter—namely,
that he should not be allowed to overrule us. He's an idle old man
who
wants to hold on to the authority that he gave away to us.
Because old fools become like children, they want to be flattered
and
pampered. But, like children, they must also be scolded and
disciplined.]
Remember what I have said.
OSWALD: Well, madam.
GONERIL: And let his knights have colder [unfriendly] looks among
you;
25
What grows of it [what comes of it], no matter; advise your
fellows so:
I would breed from hence occasions, and I shall,
That I may speak: I’ll write straight to my
sister
To hold my very course. Prepare for dinner.
[Exeunt. [I
would breed . . . course: I want
your behavior to provoke him. When he complains, I'll tell him a
thing
or two about his own intolerable behavior. I'll write to my sister
and
warn her to act toward him as I do now.][Exeunt:
Everyone leaves the stage.]

Act
1, Scene 4

A hall in the DUKE OF
ALBANY’S palace.
Enter KENT, disguised.
KENT: If but as well I other accents
borrow,
That can my speech diffuse, my good intent
May carry through itself to that full issue
5
For which I raz’d my likeness. Now, banish’d Kent,
If thou canst serve where thou dost stand
condemn’d,
So may it come, thy master, whom thou lov’st,
Shall find thee full of labours. [If
but . . . labours: If I can disguise my voice, my efforts to help
the king will succeed—especially considering that I have already
disguised my appearance. Perhaps the result of my dissembling will
be that I will eventually regain the king's favor.]
Horns within. Enter LEAR, knights, and
attendants.
10

LEAR: Let me not stay [wait] a jot for dinner. Go, get
it ready. [Exit an attendant.] How now! what art
thou?
KENT: A man, sir.
LEAR: What dost thou profess? What wouldst thou with
us?
KENT: I do profess to be no less than I seem; to serve him
truly that will put me in trust [that will trust me]; to love him that is
honest; to
converse with him that is wise, and says little; to fear judgment;
to
fight when I cannot choose; and to eat no fish.
LEAR: What art thou?
15
KENT: A very honest-hearted fellow, and as poor as the
king.
LEAR: If thou be as poor for a subject as he is for a
king, thou art poor enough. What wouldst thou?
KENT: Service.
LEAR: Whom wouldst thou serve?
KENT: You.
20
LEAR: Dost thou know me, fellow?
KENT: No, sir; but you have that in your countenance which I
would fain call master. [But you have the look of an
authority figure.]
LEAR: What’s that?
KENT: Authority.
LEAR: What services canst thou do?
25
KENT: I can keep honest counsel [secrets], ride, run, mar a curious
tale in telling it, and deliver a plain message bluntly; that
which
ordinary men are fit for, I am qualified in, and the best of me is
diligence.
LEAR: How old art thou?
KENT: Not so young, sir, to love a woman for singing [to love
a woman just because she sings well], nor
so old to dote on her for any thing; I have years on my back[,]
forty-eight.
LEAR: Follow me; thou shalt serve me: if I like thee no
worse after dinner I will not part from thee yet. Dinner, ho!
dinner!
Where’s my knave? my fool? Go you and call my fool hither.
[Exit
attendant.
Enter OSWALD.
30

You, you, sirrah, where’s my daughter?
OSWALD: So please you,— [Exit.
LEAR: What says the fellow there? Call the clotpoll
[blockhead; moron] back. [Exit a knight.] Where’s my fool,
ho? I think the
world’s asleep. How now! where’s that mongrel?
Re-enter knight.
KNIGHT: He says, my lord, your daughter is not
well.
35
LEAR: Why came not the slave back to me when I called
him?
KNIGHT: Sir, he answered me in the roundest manner, he would
not.
LEAR: He would not!
KNIGHT: My lord, I know not what the matter is; but, to my
judgment, your highness is not entertained with that ceremonious
affection as you were wont; there’s a great abatement of kindness
appears as well in the general dependants as in the duke himself
also
and your daughter. [your
highness . . . daughter: Your
highness does not receive the same lavish affection that you were
used
to; there's a great lessening of kindness toward you by everyone.]
LEAR: Ha! sayest thou so?
40
KNIGHT: I beseech you, pardon me, my lord, if I be
mistaken; for my duty cannot be silent when I think your highness
wronged.
LEAR: Thou but rememberest me of mine own conception [you
remind me of what I have already noticed]: I
have perceived a most faint neglect of late; which I have rather
blamed
as mine own jealous curiosity than as a very pretence and purpose
of
unkindness: I will look further into ’t. But where’s my fool? I
have
not seen him this two days.
KNIGHT: Since my young lady’s [Cordelia's] going into
France, sir, the fool hath much pined him away [the fool
has become depressed].
LEAR: No more of that; I have noted it well. Go you and
tell my daughter I would speak with her. [Exit an
attendant.
Go you, call hither my fool. [Exit an
attendant.
45
Re-enter OSWALD.
O! you sir, you, come you hither, sir. Who am I,
sir?
OSWALD: My lady’s [Regan's] father.
LEAR: ‘My lady’s father!’ my lord’s knave: you whoreson dog!
you slave! you cur!
OSWALD: I am none of these, my lord; I beseech your
pardon.
50
LEAR: Do you bandy looks with me, you rascal?
[Striking him.
OSWALD: I’ll not be struck, my lord.
KENT: Nor tripped neither, you base football player.
[Tripping up his heels. [base
football player: Football (soccer) players were considered common
and low.]
LEAR: I thank thee, fellow; thou servest me, and I’ll love
thee.
KENT: Come, sir, arise, away! I’ll teach you differences [a thing
or two]:
away, away! If you will measure your lubber’s length again, tarry;
but
away! Go to; have you wisdom? so. [Pushes OSWALD
out.
55[If
you will . . . wisdom: If you will
stand up and confront me again with your stupid presence, stay and
suffer the consequences. Otherwise, get going. Are you smart
enough to
leave when you're not wanted?]
LEAR: Now, my friendly knave, I thank thee: there’s
earnest of [money for] thy service. [Gives KENT
money.

Enter fool.
FOOL: Let me hire him too: here’s my coxcomb [jester's
cap].
[Offers KENT his cap.
LEAR: How now, my pretty knave! how dost
thou?
FOOL: Sirrah, you were best take my
coxcomb.
60
KENT: Why, fool?
FOOL: Why? for taking one’s part that’s out of favour.
Nay, an [if]
thou canst not smile as the wind sits, thou’lt catch cold
shortly: there, take my coxcomb. Why, this fellow has banished two
on
’s [his]
daughters, and did the third a blessing against his will: if thou
follow him thou must needs wear my coxcomb. How now, nuncle [uncle,
referring to Lear]! Would I
had two coxcombs and two daughters!
LEAR: Why, my boy?
FOOL: If I gave them [the daughters] all my living [all my
money and property, as Lear did to Goneril and Regan], I’d keep my coxcombs
myself. There’s mine; beg another of thy
daughters.
LEAR: Take heed, sirrah; the whip.
65
FOOL: Truth’s a dog must to kennel; he must be whipped out
when Lady the brach may stand by the fire and
stink. [Truth's
. . . stink: When I tell the
truth, you, punish me as if I were your dog, Lady. Meanwhile, Lady
gets
to stand by the fireplace and stink.]
LEAR: A pestilent gall to me! [You rub
me the wrong way!]
FOOL: [To KENT] Sirrah, I’ll teach thee a speech [poem].
LEAR: Do.
FOOL: Mark it, nuncle:—
70

Have
more than thou showest,
Speak less than thou knowest,
Lend less than thou owest [own],
Ride more than thou goest [walk],
Learn more than thou
trowest [know],
75
Set less than thou throwest [in
a game of dice, bet less than you can afford to lose]
Leave thy drink and thy whore,
And keep in-a-door [indoors],
And thou shalt have more [more
money]
Than two tens to a
score.
80

KENT: This is nothing, fool.
FOOL: Then ’tis like the breath of an unfee’d lawyer, you
gave me nothing for ’t. Can you make no use of nothing,
nuncle? [Then
. . . nothing for 't: Then the poem resembles what an unpaid
lawyer says. You gave me nothing for reciting it.]
LEAR: Why, no, boy; nothing can be made out of
nothing.
FOOL: [To KENT.] Prithee, tell him, so much the rent
of his land comes to: he will not believe a
fool. [Prithee
. . . comes to: I pray thee, tell him that the rent of his land
comes to nothing.]
LEAR: A bitter fool!
85
FOOL: Dost thou know the difference, my boy, between a
bitter fool and a sweet fool?
LEAR: No, lad; teach me.
FOOL:

That
lord that counsell’d thee
To give away thy land,
Come place him here by
me,
90
Do thou for him stand [you
stand in for him]:
The sweet and bitter fool
Will presently appear;
The one in motley here [in my
colorful jester clothes, I am the sweet fool],
The other found
out there [you are the bitter
one].
95

LEAR: Dost thou call me fool, boy?
FOOL: All thy other titles thou hast given away; that thou
wast born with.
KENT: This is not altogether fool, my lord. [What he
says is not entirely foolish, my lord.]
FOOL: No, faith, lords and great men will not let me; if I
had a monopoly out, they would have part on ’t, and ladies too:
they
will not let me have all fool to myself; they’ll be snatching.
Nuncle,
give me an egg, and I’ll give thee two crowns. [No,
faith . . . snatching: No, in
truth, lords and great men act the part of fools too. If I tried
to
have a monopoly on being a fool, they wouldn't allow me. They will
not
let me have foolishness all to myself. Instead, they snatch some
of it.]
LEAR: What two crowns shall they be?
100
FOOL: Why, after I have cut the egg i’ the middle and eat
up the meat, the two crowns of the egg. [Why,
after I cut the egg in the middle and eat the whites, two golden
crowns remain—the yolk cut in half.] When thou clovest thy crown
i’
the middle, and gavest away both parts, thou borest thine ass on
thy
back o’er the dirt: thou hadst little wit in thy bald crown when
thou
gavest thy golden one away. [When
you cut your kingdom in half and gave away both parts, you were
just as
foolhardy as the man who carries his donkey instead of riding it.] If I speak like myself in
this, let him be
whipped that first finds it so. [If I'm speaking the
truth—which is my job as a jester—whip the man who thinks I'm a
lying fool.]

Fools had ne’er less grace in a year [fools have had a hard time practicing their trade];
For wise men are grown foppish [for
wise men are becoming foolish],
And know not how their wits to wear [and don't how to use their intelligence],
Their manners are so apish [because
they go around imitating people like me].

LEAR: When were you wont to be so full of songs,
sirrah? FOOL: I have used it,
nuncle, ever since thou madest thy
daughters thy mothers [caregivers]; for when thou gavest them
the rod and puttest
down thine own breeches, 104

Then
they for sudden joy did weep,
And I for sorrow sung,
That such a king should play bo-peep [should play a child's game],
And go the fools among [and walk
among the fools].

Prithee, nuncle, keep a schoolmaster that can teach thy fool to
lie: I would fain learn to lie.
LEAR: An you lie, sirrah, we’ll have you
whipped.
105
FOOL: I marvel what kin thou and thy daughters are:
they’ll have me whipped for speaking true, thou’lt have me whipped
for
lying; and sometimes I am whipped for holding my peace. I had
rather be
any kind o’ thing than a fool; and yet I would not be thee,
nuncle;
thou hast pared thy wit o’ both sides, and left nothing i’ the
middle:
here comes one o’ the parings [daughters].
Enter GONERIL.

LEAR: How now, daughter! what makes that frontlet [sour
look; grimace; frown] on?
Methinks you are too much of late i’ the frown.
FOOL: Thou wast a pretty fellow when thou hadst no need to
care for her frowning; now thou art an O without a figure [a zero
unaccompanied by a number before or after it, such as 20 or 0.6.
In other words, Lear is nothing]. I am better
than thou art now; I am a fool, thou art nothing. [To
GONERIL.] Yes, forsooth, I will hold my tongue; so your face
bids
me, though you say nothing.

That’s a shealed [shelled; having the husk or pod
removed]
peascod. [Pointing to LEAR.
GONERIL: Not only, sir, this your all-licens’d [free to
say or do anything] fool,
But other of your insolent retinue [attendants]
115
Do hourly carp and quarrel, breaking forth
In rank and not-to-be-endured riots. Sir,
I had thought, by making this well known unto
you,
To have found a safe redress; but now grow
fearful,
By what yourself too late have spoke and done,
120
That you protect this course, and put it on
By your allowance; which if you should, the fault Would not ’scape censure,
nor the redresses sleep,
Which, in the tender of a wholesome weal,
Might in their working do you that offence,
125
Which else were shame, that then necessity
Will call discreet proceeding. [I
had though . . . proceeding: I
thought that when I informed you of their behavior, you would
correct
it. But, no, what you say and do indicates that you tolerate their
behavior and even encourage it by your lack of action. True,
censuring
them might make them angry with you. Nevertheless, you should do
your
duty just the same.]
FOOL: For you trow [know], nuncle,

The
hedge-sparrow fed the cuckoo so long,
That it had its head bit off
by it young.
130

[The
hedge- . . . young: The hedge-sparrow fed the baby cuckoo so
long that,
when the cuckoo grew larger, it bit off the sparrow's head.]

So out went the candle, and we were left darkling [in the
dark].
LEAR: Are you our daughter?
GONERIL: I would you would make use of your good
wisdom,
Where of I know you are fraught [filled with;]; and put
away
These dispositions which of late transform you
135
From what you rightly are.
FOOL: May not an ass know when the cart draws the horse?
Whoop, Jug! I love thee.

[May . . . horse: Even a dumb ass
knows when the cart pulls the horse. In other words, the
natural order is reversed: Goneril is trying to boss her
father.][Whoop . . . thee: Nonsensical
words, which the fool utters from time to time.]

LEAR: Does any here know me? This is not
Lear:
Does Lear walk thus? speak thus? Where are his
eyes?
Either his notion weakens, his discernings
140
Are lethargied. Ha! waking? ’tis not so. [Does
any . . . not so: Does anyone
here know who I am? I cannot be Lear. Lear doesn't walk or speak
this
way. Where is Lear's insight? Either his mind is slipping or his
judgment cannot function. Am I awake? I don't think so.]
Who is it that can tell me who I am?
FOOL: Lear’s shadow.
LEAR: I would learn that; for, by the marks of
sovereignty, knowledge and reason, I should be false persuaded I
had
daughters. [I
would learn . . . daughters: I would like to find out who I am. By
all that I see and know, I don't even have daughters.]
FOOL: Which they will make an obedient
father.
145[Which
. . . father: Daughters would make you obey them.]
LEAR: Your name, fair gentlewoman?
GONERIL: This admiration, sir, is much o’ the
favour
Of other your new pranks. I do beseech you
To understand my purposes aright: [This
admiration . . . aright: Calling
me a fair gentlewoman is just one of your new pranks. But I do ask
you
to understand my intentions:]
As you are old and reverend, [you] should be
wise.
150
Here do you keep a hundred knights and squires;
Men so disorder’d, so debosh’d [debauched—that is, morally
corrupted], and bold,
That this our court, infected with their
manners,
Shows [looks] like a riotous inn: epicurism and lust
[epicurism:
Epicureanism, a devotion to pleasures of the senses]
Make it more like a tavern or a brothel
155
Than a grac’d palace. The shame itself doth
speak
For instant remedy; be then desir’d
By her that else will take the thing she begs, A little to disquantity
your train;
And the remainder, that shall still depend,
160
To be such men as may besort your age,
Which know themselves and you. [be
then . . . and you: Be then open
to making changes, such as dismissing some of your rowdy knights.
It's
all right with me if you keep such older men as may fit in (besort, line 161)
with your advancing age.]
LEAR: Darkness and devils!
Saddle my horses; call my train together.
Degenerate bastard! I’ll not trouble thee:
165
Yet have I left a daughter.
GONERIL: You strike my people, and your disorder’d
rabble
Make servants of their betters.
Enter ALBANY.
LEAR: Woe, that too late repents;
170
[To ALBANY.] O! sir, are you come?
Is it your will? Speak, sir. Prepare my horses. [Lear
speaks the last sentence to servants.]
Ingratitude, thou marble-hearted fiend,
More hideous, when thou show’st thee in a child,
Than the sea-monster.
175
ALBANY: Pray, sir, be patient.
LEAR: [To GONERIL.] Detested kite! thou liest:
My train are men of choice and rarest parts,
That all particulars of duty know,
And in the most exact regard support
180
The worships of their name. O most small fault, How ugly didst thou in
Cordelia show!
Which, like an engine, wrench’d my frame of
nature
From the fix’d place, drew from my heart all
love,
And added to the gall. O Lear, Lear, Lear!
185
Beat at this gate, that let thy folly in, [Striking his
head.
And thy dear judgment out! Go, go, my people. [My
train . . . judgment out: My knights
are of the highest quality. They know well their duty and behave
in a
manner that preserves their good name. O, that small fault in
Cordelia.
How ugly it appeared in her. It drew all the love from my heart,
embittered me, and
changed me into a different man. Why did I let folly into my mind
to replace good judgment?]
ALBANY: My lord, I am guiltless, as I am
ignorant
Of what hath mov’d [upset] you.
LEAR: It may be so, my
lord.
190
Hear, Nature, hear! dear goddess, hear!
Suspend thy purpose, if thou didst intend
To make this creature [Goneril] fruitful!
Into her womb convey sterility!
Dry up in her the organs of increase [reproduction],
195
And from her derogate [degraded] body never
spring
A babe to honour her! If she must teem [become
pregnant; give birth],
Create her child of spleen [ill temper], that it may
live
And be a thwart disnatur’d [perverse; unnatural] torment to
her!
Let it stamp wrinkles in her brow of youth,
200
With cadent [falling; trickling] tears fret [dig;
cut] channels
in her cheeks,
Turn all her mother’s pains and benefits
To laughter and contempt, that she may feel
How sharper than a serpent’s tooth it is
To have a thankless child! Away, away!
[Exit.
205
ALBANY: Now, gods that we adore, whereof comes
this?
GONERIL: Never afflict yourself to know the
cause;
But let his disposition have that scope [room;
freedom; leeway]
That dotage [old age] gives it.
Re-enter LEAR.
210

LEAR: What! fifty of my followers at a
clap,
Within a fortnight? [What
. . . fortnight: What! Have fifty of my knights been dismissed in
two weeks?]
ALBANY: What’s the matter, sir?
LEAR: I’ll tell thee. [To GONERIL.] Life and
death! I am asham’d
That thou hast power to shake my manhood thus,
215
That these hot tears, which break from me perforce [automatically;
unavoidably],
Should make thee worth them [should make me cry for a
worthless daughter like you]. Blasts [wind blasts] and fogs upon
thee!
Th’ untented [untreated] woundings of a father’s curse
Pierce every sense about thee! Old fond eyes,
Beweep this cause again, I’ll pluck ye out,
220
And cast you, with the waters that you lose,
To temper clay. Yea, is it come to this? [Old
fond . . . to this: If my eyes cry for you again, I'll pluck them
out and cast them into my pool of tears to temper clay.]
Let it be so: I have another daughter,
Who, I am sure, is kind and comfortable:
When she shall hear this of thee, with her nails
225
She’ll flay [scratch] thy wolvish visage [face]. Thou shalt
find
That I’ll resume the shape [demeanor; personality] which thou dost
think
I have cast off for ever; thou shalt, I warrant thee.
[Exeunt LEAR, KENT, and attendants. [Exeunt:
The characters specified leave the stage.]
GONERIL: Do you mark that?
ALBANY: I cannot be so partial, Goneril,
230
To the great love I bear you.—
GONERIL: Pray you, content. [All
right, don't say anything.] What, Oswald, ho! [Oswald, come in here.]
[To the Fool.] You, sir, more knave than fool, after [follow] your
master.
FOOL: Nuncle Lear, nuncle Lear! tarry, and take the fool
with thee.

A fox,
when one has caught
her,
235
And such a daughter,
Should sure to the slaughter [should
sure be slaughtered],
If my cap would buy a halter [rope
to tie up a person; hangman's rope];
So the fool follows after. [Exit.

GONERIL: This man hath had good counsel. A hundred
knights!
240
’Tis politic and safe to let him keep
At point a hundred knights; yes, that on every
dream,
Each buzz, each fancy, each complaint, dislike,
He may enguard his dotage with their powers,
And hold our lives in mercy. Oswald, I say!
245[This
man . . . Oswald, I say: My
father has received good advice (spoken sarcastically). We're
supposed
to tolerate a hundred knights around here so that they will back
him up
whenever we refuse to yield to his foolish fancies and complaints.
Oswald! I said come in here.]
ALBANY: Well, you may fear too far. [You may
be overreacting.]
GONERIL: Safer than trust too far. [It's
better to overreact than to "over-trust" him.]
Let me still take away the harms I fear,
Not fear still to be taken: I know his heart. [Let
me . . . taken: I would rather take away the harms I fear than let
them stay and control me.]
What he hath utter’d I have writ [written in a letter to] my
sister;
250
If she sustain him and his hundred knights,
When I have show’d the unfitness,— [showed
his unfitness—]
Re-enter OSWALD.
How now, Oswald!
What! have you writ that letter to my sister?
255
OSWALD: Ay, madam.
GONERIL: Take you some company, and away to
horse:
Inform her full [completely] of my particular
fear;
And thereto add such reasons of your own
As may compact [explain] it more. Get you
gone,
260
And hasten your return. [Exit OSWALD.] No, no, my
lord,
This milky gentleness and course of yours
Though I condemn not, yet, under pardon,
You are much more attask’d for want of wisdom
Than prais’d for harmful mildness.
265[This
milky . . . mildness: My
husband, I do not condemn you for your gentleness with my father.
But you
do seem to lack the wisdom to cope with him.]
ALBANY: How far your eyes may pierce I cannot
tell:
Striving to better, oft we mar what’s well. [How
far . . . what's well: How deep
your own wisdom is I cannot tell. All I can say is that when we
try to
improve a situation we somtimes make it worse. It's human nature.]
GONERIL: Nay, then—
ALBANY: Well, well; the event.
[Exeunt. [Exeunt:
Everyone leaves the stage.][Well
. . . event: Well, let's wait to see how things turn out.]

Act
1, Scene 5

Court before the Duke of
Albany's palace.
Enter LEAR, KENT in disguise, and Fool.
LEAR: Go you before to Gloucester with these letters.
Acquaint my
daughter no further with any thing you know than comes from her
demand
out of the letter. [After my daughter reads what I
have to say, don't answer any questions she may have.] If your diligence be not
speedy I shall be there before you.
KENT: I will not sleep, my lord, till I have delivered your
letter. [Exit.
FOOL: If a man’s brains were in ’s [in his] heels, were ’t [were it] not in danger of kibes [inflammation
and/or ulceration caused by exposure to cold and moisture]?
5
LEAR: Ay, boy.
FOOL: Then, I prithee, be merry; thy wit shall not go
slip-shod. [Then
. . . slip-shod: Then, I pray, be happy. Because you don't have
any brains, you won't need slippers to protect them.]
LEAR: Ha, ha, ha!
FOOL: Shalt see thy other daughter will use thee kindly; for
though she’s as like this as a crab is like an apple, yet I can
tell
what I can tell. [Shalt
. . . tell: You shall see that
your other daughter, Regan, will treat you kindly. True, she is
just as
crabby as her crabapple sister. But I know what I know.]
LEAR: What canst tell, boy?
10
FOOL: She will taste as like this as a crab does to a crab.
Thou
canst tell why one’s nose stands i’ the middle on ’s
face? [She
will . . . crab: She will taste just as sour as Goneril.]
LEAR: No.
FOOL: Why, to keep one’s eyes of either side’s nose, that
what a man cannot smell out, he may spy into.
LEAR: I did her wrong,—
FOOL: Canst tell how an oyster makes his
shell?
15
LEAR: No.
FOOL: Nor I neither; but I can tell why a snail has a house
[shell].
LEAR: Why?
FOOL: Why, to put his head in; not to give it away to his
daughters, and leave his horns without a case. [Why,
to . . . case: Because his house
is on his back, he will always have a home. He will never have to
give
it away to his daughters and leave himself homeless in the open
air.]
LEAR: I will forget my nature. So kind a father! [I will
forget my nature as such a kind father.] Be my horses
ready?
20
FOOL: Thy asses are gone about ’em. [Your
attendants have gone to get them.] The reason why the seven stars are no more than
seven is a pretty reason. [seven
stars: The seven stars in the constellation Pleiades]
LEAR: Because they are not eight?
FOOL: Yes, indeed: thou wouldst make a good
fool.
LEAR: To take it again perforce! Monster ingratitude!
[To
take . . . ingratitude: I should consider taking back my kingdom
by force! The monstrous ingratitude of children!]
FOOL: If thou wert my fool, nuncle, I’d have thee beaten
for being old before thy time.
25
LEAR: How’s that?
FOOL: Thou shouldst not have been old before thou hadst been
wise.
LEAR: O! let me not be mad, not mad, sweet
heaven;
Keep me in temper; I would not be mad!
Enter gentleman.
30

How now! Are the horses ready?
GENTLEMAN: Ready, my lord.
LEAR: Come, boy.
FOOL: She that’s a maid now, and laughs at my
departure,
Shall not be a maid long, unless things be cut shorter.
[Exeunt.
35[She
that's . . . shorter: A
maiden who laughs because I am going with the king will not be a
virgin
very long unless penises be cut shorter.][Exeunt:
Everyone leaves the stage.]

Act
2, Scene 1

A court within the
castle of the EARL OF GLOUCESTER.
Enter EDMUND and CURAN, meeting.
EDMUND: Save thee [a greeting], Curan.
Cur. And you, sir. I have been with your father [Gloucester], and given him notice that
the Duke of Cornwall and Regan his duchess will be here with him
to-night.
EDMUND: How comes that?
5
Cur. Nay, I know not. You have heard of the news abroad? I
mean
the whispered ones, for they are yet but ear-kissing arguments [just
idle talk]?
EDMUND: Not I: pray you, what are they?
Cur. Have you heard of no likely wars toward [being
planned],
’twixt [between] the Dukes of Cornwall and Albany?
EDMUND: Not a word.
Cur. You may do [may hear about them] then, in time. Fare you
well, sir. [Exit.
10
EDMUND: The duke be here to-night! The better! best! [The
better . . . best: That's good news.]
This weaves itself perforce into my business.
My father hath set guard to take [has arranged to arrest] my
brother;
And I have one thing, of a queasy question,
Which I must act. Briefness and fortune, work!
15[And
I . . . work: And I have one thing, a bit daunting, to do. Luck
and quick work will help me succeed.]
Brother, a word; descend: brother, I say! [Brother
. . . say: Hey, brother, come to the court. I want to speak with
you.]
Enter EDGAR.
My father watches: O sir! fly [leave] this
place;
Intelligence is given [it's known] where you are
hid;
You have now the good advantage of the night.
20
Have you not spoken ’gainst the Duke of Cornwall? He’s coming hither [here], now, i’ the night, i’ the
haste,
And Regan with him; have you nothing said
Upon his party ’gainst the Duke of Albany?
Advise yourself.
25[Have
you . . . yourself: Did you
happen to say anything that might upset the Duke of Cornwall? What
about the Duke of Albany? Think.]
EDGAR: I am sure on ’t, not a word.
EDMUND: I hear my father coming; pardon
me;
In cunning I must draw my sword upon you;
Draw; seem to defend yourself; now ’quit [acquit—that
is, perform]
you well.
Yield;—come before my father. Light, ho! here!
30
Fly, brother. Torches! torches! So, farewell. [Exit
EDGAR.
Some blood drawn on me would beget opinion [Wounds his
arm.
Of my more fierce endeavour: I have seen
drunkards
Do more than this in sport. Father! father!
Stop, stop! No help?
35
Enter GLOUCESTER, and servants with torches.
GLOUCESTER: Now, Edmund, where’s the
villain?
EDMUND: Here stood he in the dark, his sharp sword
out,
Mumbling of wicked charms, conjuring the moon
To stand auspicious mistress [partner].
40
GLOUCESTER: But where is he?
EDMUND: Look, sir, I bleed.
GLOUCESTER: Where is the villain, Edmund?
EDMUND: Fled this way, sir. When by no means he
could—
GLOUCESTER: Pursue him, ho! Go after. [Exeunt some
servants.] ‘By no means’ what?
45[Exeunt:
The characters specified leave the stage.]
EDMUND: Persuade me to the murder of your
lordship;
But that I told him, the revenging gods
’Gainst parricides [murders of fathers by their
children] did
all their thunders bend;
Spoke with how manifold and strong a bond
The child was bound to the father; sir, in fine,
50
Seeing how loathly opposite I stood
To his unnatural purpose, in fell [deadly] motion,
With his prepared sword he charges home
My unprovided body, lanc’d mine arm:
But when he saw my best alarum’d [summoned; brought into play] spirits
55
Bold in the quarrel’s right, rous’d to the
encounter,
Or whether gasted [frightened] by the noise I
made,
Full suddenly he fled.
GLOUCESTER: Let him fly far:
Not in this land shall he remain uncaught;
60And found—dispatch. The
noble duke my master, [Let
him . . . dispatch: He'd better run far. If he remains in this
land, he'll be caught and executed.]
My worthy arch and patron [the Duke of Cornwall], comes
to-night:
By his authority I will proclaim it,
That he which finds him shall deserve our
thanks,
Bringing the murderous coward to the stake;
65
He that conceals him, death.
EDMUND: When I dissuaded him from his
intent,
And found him pight [determined] to do it, with curst
speech
I threaten’d to discover him: he replied,
‘Thou unpossessing bastard! dost thou think,
70[unpossessing:
destined to have no inheritance (because he is illegitimate)]
If I would stand against thee, would the reposal
Of any trust, virtue, or worth, in thee
Make thy words faith’d? No: what I should deny,—
As this I would; ay, though
thou didst produce
My very character,—I’d turn it all
75
To thy suggestion, plot, and damned practice: [If I
would . . . practice: If I stand
against you, would anyone repose (put) any faith in you or your
words?
No, because I would deny everything, even if you produced evidence
bearing my own handwriting (character,
line 75). I'd say it was you who plotted the murder.]
And thou must make a dullard of the world,
If they not thought the profits of my death
Were very pregnant and potential spurs
To make thee seek it.’
80[And
thou . . . seek: And you must
believe the world is stupid if you think people wouldn't know that
you
stand to profit from my death. If I were killed, they would point
the
finger at you.]
GLOUCESTER: Strong and fasten’d [complete;
confirmed]
villain!
Would he deny [that he wrote] his letter? I never got him. [Tucket
within. [Tucket
within: Trumpet blowing offstage]
Hark! the duke’s trumpets. I know not why he
comes.
All ports I’ll bar; the villain shall not
’scape;
The duke must grant me that: besides, his
picture
85
I will send far and near, that all the kingdom
May have due note of him; and of my land,
Loyal and natural boy, I’ll work the means
To make thee capable [qualified to be my heir].
Enter CORNWALL, REGAN, and attendants.
90

CORNWALL: How now, my noble friend! since I came
hither,—
Which I can call but now,—I have heard strange
news.
REGAN: If it be true, all vengeance comes too
short
Which can pursue the offender. How dost, my
lord?
GLOUCESTER: O! madam, my old heart is crack’d, it’s
crack’d.
95
REGAN: What! did my father’s godson seek your
life?
He whom my father nam’d? your Edgar?
GLOUCESTER: O! lady, lady, shame would have it
hid.
REGAN: Was he not companion with the riotous
knights
That tend upon my father?
100
GLOUCESTER: I know not, madam; ’tis too bad, too
bad.
EDMUND: Yes, madam, he was of that
consort.
REGAN: No marvel then though he were ill
affected;
’Tis they have put him on the old man’s [Gloucester's] death,
To have the expense and waste of his revenues.
105
I have this present evening from my sister
Been well-inform’d of them, and with such
cautions
That if they come to sojourn at my house,
I’ll not be there.
CORNWALL: Nor I, assure
thee, Regan.
110
Edmund, I hear that you have shown your father
A child-like office [great courtesy and loyalty].
EDMUND: ’Twas my duty, sir.
GLOUCESTER: He did bewray his practice and
receiv’d
[bewray . . . practice: Expose Edgar's plot. Bewray means betray as a synonym for reveal, as in this sentence: The criminal
did not betray his guilt.]
This hurt [cut; wound] you see, striving to apprehend
him.
115
CORNWALL: Is he pursu’d?
GLOUCESTER: Ay, my good lord.
CORNWALL: If he be taken he shall never
more
Be fear’d of doing harm; make your own purpose,
How in my strength you please. For you, Edmund,
120[make
your . . . you please. In your plan for apprehending him, you may
use my power and authority to back you up.]
Whose virtue and obedience doth this instant
So much commend itself, you shall be ours [you
shall work for me]:
Natures of such deep trust we shall much need;
You we first seize on.
EDMUND: I shall serve
you, sir,
125
Truly, however else. [I
shall . . . else: I shall serve you, sir, in any way you wish.]
GLOUCESTER: For him I thank your Grace.
CORNWALL: You know not why we came to visit
you,—
REGAN: Thus out of season, threading dark-ey’d
night:
Occasions, noble Gloucester, of some prize,
130
Wherein we must have use of your advice. [Thus
out . . . advice: The reason we came to
visit you out of season, finding our way through the darkness, is
to
get your advice on some important matters.]
Our father he hath writ, so hath our sister,
Of differences, which I best thought it fit
To answer from our home; the several messengers
From hence attend dispatch. Our good old friend,
135
Lay comforts to your bosom, and bestow
Your needful counsel to our businesses,
Which craves the instant use. [Our
father. . . home: My father and my sister have both written
letters to me about problems between them. Rather than answer the
letters from home, I came here to get your advice on what to
say. So
please give it to us. We crave it immediately.]
GLOUCESTER: I serve you, madam.
Your Graces are right welcome. [Exeunt.
140[Exeunt:
Everyone leaves the stage.]

Act
2, Scene 2

Before GLOUCESTER’S
castle.
Enter KENT and OSWALD, severally.
OSWALD: Good dawning to thee, friend: art of this
house?
KENT: Ay.
OSWALD: Where may we set our horses?
5
KENT: I’ the mire. [In the mud]
OSWALD: Prithee, if thou lovest me, tell me. [Be so
kind as to tell me where the stables are.]
KENT: I love thee not.
OSWALD: Why, then I care not for thee. [Oswald
does not recognize Kent. They had had a previous confrontation
(1.4.50-55)]
KENT: If I had thee in Lipsbury pinfold [a dog
pound], I would
make thee care for me.
10
OSWALD: Why dost thou use me thus? I know thee
not.
KENT: Fellow, I know thee.
OSWALD: What dost thou know me for?
KENT: A knave, a rascal, an eater of broken meats [lower-class
man who eats the meat scraps left by others]; a base, proud,
shallow, beggarly, three-suited, hundred-pound, filthy,
worsted-stocking knave; [three-suited
. . . knave: Lowly man of the servant class who has a small
wardrobe,
limited financial assets (a hundred pounds), and wears common
worsted
stockings instead of silk ones]; a lily-liver’d, action-taking knave [cowardly
man who sues an enemy in court rather than fighting him]; a
whoreson, glass-gazing , superserviceable, finical rogue [whoreson
. . .rogue: Son of a whore who admires his image in a mirror, bows
and scrapes to his master, and is finicky];
one-trunk-inheriting slave [person who inherited so little
from his father that it can fit in one trunk]; one that wouldst be a bawd
[pimp],
in way of good
service, and art nothing but the composition of a knave, beggar,
coward, pandar [one who arranges illicit sexual
encounters],
and the son and heir of a mongrel bitch [female
dog of mixed breed]: one whom I
will beat into clamorous whining if thou deniest the least
syllable of
thy addition [description].
OSWALD: Why, what a monstrous fellow art thou, thus to rail
on one that is neither known of thee nor knows
thee!
15
KENT: What a brazen-faced varlet [villain] art thou, to deny thou
knowest me! Is it two days since I tripped up thy heels and beat
thee
before the king? Draw, you rogue; for, though it be night, yet the
moon
shines: I’ll make a sop [a milquetoast; cowering weakling] o’ the moonshine of
you. [Drawing his
sword.] Draw, you whoreson, cullionly [despicable], barber-monger [one who
frequently goes to a barber to prettify himself],
draw.
OSWALD: Away! I have nothing to do with
thee.
KENT: Draw, you rascal; you come with letters against the
king, and take vanity the puppet’s [take his
vain daughter's]
part against the royalty of her
father. Draw, you rogue, or I’ll so carbonado your shanks: draw,
you
rascal; come your ways. [carbonado:
Score or cut open a piece of meat]
OSWALD: Help, ho! murder! help!
KENT: Strike, you slave; stand, rogue, stand; you neat
[dainty; fastidious] slave, strike. [Beating him.
20
OSWALD: Help, oh! murder! murder!
Enter EDMUND with his rapier [two-edged thrusting sword] drawn.

EDMUND: How now! What’s the matter? [Parting
them.
KENT: With you, goodman boy, if you please:
come,
I’ll flesh ye; come on, young master.
25[With
you . . . master: I'll fight with you, little man, if you please.
Come on, I'll show you a thing or two.]
Enter CORNWALL, REGAN, GLOUCESTER, and servants.
GLOUCESTER: Weapons! arms! What’s the matter
here?
CORNWALL: Keep peace, upon your lives:
He dies that strikes again. What is the matter?
REGAN: The messengers from our sister and the
king.
30
CORNWALL: What is your difference? speak.
OSWALD: I am scarce in breath, my lord.
KENT: No marvel, you have so bestirred your valour. You
cowardly rascal, nature disclaims in thee: a tailor made
thee. [No
marvel . . . thee: It's no wonder
that you're so excited. You're such a coward that nature takes no
credit for your existence. I think a tailor made you, judging from
your
showy clothes.]
CORNWALL: Thou art a strange fellow; a tailor make a
man?
KENT: Ay, a tailor, sir: a stone-cutter or a painter could
not have made him so ill [poorly], though they had been but
two hours o’ [in] the
trade.
35
CORNWALL: Speak yet, how grew your
quarrel?
OSWALD: This ancient [old] ruffian, sir, whose life I
have spar’d at suit of his grey beard,— [at
suit . . . beard: because of his advancing age]
KENT: Thou whoreson zed [the letter z, at the end of the
alphabet]! thou
unnecessary letter! My lord,
if you will give me leave, I will tread this unbolted [unrefined;
low and coarse]
villain into
mortar, and daub the wall of a jakes [outhouse] with him. Spare my grey
beard, you
wagtail [strutting bird that wags its tail feathers]?
CORNWALL: Peace, sirrah!
You beastly knave, know you no reverence?
40
KENT: Yes, sir; but anger hath a privilege [a right
to speak out].
CORNWALL: Why art thou angry?
KENT: That such a slave as this should wear a
sword,
Who wears no honesty. Such smiling rogues as
these,
Like rats, oft bite the holy cords a-twain
45
Which are too intrinse t’ unloose; smooth [justify;
encourage]
every passion
That in the natures of their lords rebel; [oft
bite . . . rebel: Often cut the holy cords of marriage by helping
to provide their masters opportunities for adultery] Bring oil to fire, snow
to their colder moods;
Renege, affirm, and turn their halcyon beaks
With every gale and vary of their masters,
50
Knowing nought, like dogs, but following. [Bring
oil . . . following: People
like him pour oil on their masters' fire,
excuse their masters' bad moods, say no or yes when it pleases
their masters, and go along with every whim of their masters.
Knowing nothing about what their masters are thinking, good or
bad,
they follow their masters anyway, like dogs.]
A plague upon your epileptic visage!
Smile you my speeches, as I were a fool? [Are
you smiling in derision at my words, as if I were a fool?]
Goose, if I had you upon Sarum plain,[Sarum
plain: Salisbury Plain, in the county of Wiltshire in southern
England]
I’d drive ye cackling home to Camelot [home of
King Arthur in Arthurian legends].
55
CORNWALL: What! art thou mad, old fellow?
GLOUCESTER: How fell you out? say that. [Tell me
what started this quarrel between you and Oswald.]
KENT: No contraries hold more antipathy
Than I and such a knave. [No
contraries . . . knave: No enemies hold more hatred for each other
than do I and that knave Oswald.]
CORNWALL: Why dost thou call him knave? What is his
fault?
60
KENT: His countenance likes me not. [His face
doesn't like me.]
CORNWALL: No more, perchance, does mine, nor his, nor
hers.
KENT: Sir, ’tis my occupation to be plain:
I have seen better faces in my time
Than stands on any shoulder that I see
65
Before me at this instant.
CORNWALL: This is some fellow,
Who, having been prais’d for bluntness, doth
affect
A saucy roughness, and constrains the garb
Quite from his nature: he cannot flatter, he,
70
An honest mind and plain, he must speak truth:
An they will take it, so; if not, he’s plain. [This
is . . . he's plain: Although
this fellow has been praised for being straightforward and blunt,
he's
going too far with his rough demeanor and distortion of facts. He
won't
flatter anyone, since he's honest and plain. He must speak the
truth.]
These [this] kind of knaves I know, which in this
plainness
Harbour more craft and more corrupter ends
Than twenty silly-ducking observants,
75
That stretch their duties nicely. [These
kind of . . . nicely: This type
of person exhibits honesty and plainness on the surface. But
inside
he's sly and crafty, far more so than twenty flatterers who tell
you
what you want to hear.]
KENT: Sir, in good sooth [truth], in sincere verity [truth],
Under the allowance of your grand aspect,
Whose influence, like the wreath of radiant fire
On flickering Phoebus’ front,—
80[like
the . . . front: Like the fire of Phoebus Apollo (the sun god in
Greek mythology), as he drives
his golden chariot across the sky]
CORNWALL: What mean’st by this?
KENT: To go out of my dialect, which you discommend so
much. I know, sir, I am no flatterer: he that beguiled you in a
plain
accent was a plain knave; which for my part I will not be, though
I
should win your displeasure to entreat me to ’t.
[To
go out . . . to 't: By
referring to Phoebus, from Greek mythology, I was trying not to
speak
so plainly, which you don't like (lines 68-70). I must say that I
am
not a flatterer who praises with fancy words. He who spoke to you
in a
plain accent was a plain knave. But I won't be a knave even if you
ask me to be one.]
CORNWALL: What was the offence you gave
him?
OSWALD: I never gave him any:
It pleas’d the king his master very late
85
To strike at me, upon his misconstruction;
When he, conjunct, and flattering his
displeasure,
Tripp’d me behind; being down, insulted, rail’d,
And put upon him such a deal of man,
That worthied him, got praises of the king
90
For him attempting who was self-subdu’d;
And, in the fleshment of this dread exploit,
Drew on me here again. [It
pleas'd . . . here again: When the
king recently struck me after a misunderstanding between us, this
fellow tripped me from behind to please the king. Then he insulted
me
and railed at me so fiercely that the king praised him even though
I
had subdued myself and did not retaliate. And, in reliving this
episode, this fellow drew his sword on me.]
KENT: None of these rogues and cowards
But Ajax is their fool.
95[None
. . . fool: Kent sums up by
saying that the "rogues and cowards" around him would make fools
of
brave men, such as Ajax, a hero in the Trojan War in ancient
times.
Cornwall, as a leader of men, thinks Kent is saying that people
are
making a fool out of him.]
CORNWALL: Fetch forth the stocks!
You stubborn ancient knave, you reverend
braggart,
We’ll teach you.
KENT: Sir, I am too old to learn,
Call not your stocks for me; I serve the king,
100
On whose employment I was sent to you;
You shall do small respect, show too bold malice
Against the grace and person of my master,
Stocking his messenger.
CORNWALL: Fetch forth the stocks! As I have life and
honour,
105
There shall he sit till noon.
REGAN: Till noon! Till night, my lord; and all night
too.
KENT: Why, madam, if I were your father’s
dog,
You should not use me so.
REGAN: Sir, being his
knave, I will.
110
CORNWALL: This is a fellow of the self-same
colour
Our sister speaks of. Come, bring away [out] the stocks. [Stocks
brought out.
GLOUCESTER: Let me beseech your Grace not to do
so.
His fault is much, and the good king his master
Will check him for ’t: your purpos’d low
correction
115
Is such as basest and contemned’st [scorned;
contemptible]
wretches
For pilferings [minor thefts] and most common
trespasses
Are punish’d with: the king must take it ill,
That he, so slightly valu’d in his messenger,
Should have him thus restrain’d.
120[the
king must . . . restrain'd: The king will be angry that you are
treating his messenger with so little respect.]
CORNWALL: I’ll answer that. [I'm not
afraid to answer for this punishment.]
REGAN: My sister may receive it much more
worse
To have her gentleman [Oswald] abus’d,
assaulted,
For following her affairs [for doing her bidding; for running
her errands].
Put in his legs. [KENT is put in the
stocks.
Come, my good lord, away. [Exeunt all but GLOUCESTER and
KENT.
125[Exeunt
. . . Kent: Everyone leaves the stage except Gloucester and Kent.]
GLOUCESTER: I am sorry for thee, friend; ’tis the duke’s
pleasure,
Whose disposition, all the world well knows,
Will not be rubb’d nor stopp’d: I’ll entreat [ask for
mercy] for
thee. [rubb'd:
Slowed down. Rub
is a term used is the game of lawn bowls (bowling). A rubbed ball
is
one that swerves or slows down after it rolls across a patch of
uneven
ground.]
KENT: Pray, do not, sir. I have watch’d and travell’d
hard;
Some time I shall sleep out, the rest I’ll
whistle.
130
A good man’s fortune may grow out at heels:
Give you good morrow! [Pray
. . . morrow: Please don't, sir.
I have been awake for a long time, and I have endured hard travel.
Thus, I welcome the opportunity to sleep while I'm in the stocks.
When
I'm not sleeping, I'll spend my time whistling. A man's good luck
is
destined to run out. I bid you good day!]
GLOUCESTER: The duke’s to blame in this; ’twill be ill
taken. [Exit.
KENT: Good king, that must approve the common
saw,
Thou out of heaven’s benediction com’st
135
To the warm sun. [Good
king . . . sun: Good King Lear,
you're showing us the truth in the old proverb that there comes a
time
in every man's life when he will emerge from the cool comfort of
the
heavens into the heat of a hot sun.][Gloucester
takes out a letter to read.]
Approach, thou beacon to this under globe,
That by thy comfortable beams I may
Peruse this letter. Nothing almost sees miracles
But misery: I know ’tis from Cordelia,
140[Approach
. . . Cordelia: Sun,
approach the earth so that your bright beams will enable me to
read
this letter. No one but the miserable can claim to see miracles. I
know
this letter is from Cordelia.]
Who hath most fortunately been inform’d
Of my obscured course; and shall find time
From this enormous state, seeking to give
Losses their remedies. All weary and
o’er-watch’d,
Take vantage, heavy eyes, not to behold
145
This shameful lodging.
Fortune, good night, smile once more; turn thy wheel! [He
sleeps.[Who
hath . . . wheel: Cordelia has
been informed that I have disguised myself to serve the king. She
says
she will find time to remedy the enormous problems growing out of
Lear's recent actions. I hope my weary eyes will take advantage of
the
opportunity for me to sleep so that they don't have to see me
imprisoned in these stocks.]

Act
2, Scene 3

A part of the heath.
Enter EDGAR.
EDGAR: I heard myself proclaim’d; [I heard
my name shouted]
And by the happy [found by chance; lucky] hollow of a
tree
Escap’d the hunt. No port is free; no place,
5
That guard, and most unusual vigilance,
Does not attend my taking. While I may ’scape
I will preserve myself; and am bethought
To take the basest and most poorest shape
That ever penury, in contempt of man,
10
Brought near to beast; my face I’ll grime with
filth, [No
port . . . beast: Every place I go
is under surveillance by vigilant pursuers who want to apprehend
me.
But as long as I can keep running, I may preserve myself. I think
I
will
disguise myself as a beggar so poor and lowly that he isn't much
better
than a beast.]
Blanket my loins [wear a loincloth], elf [tangle] all my hair in
knots,
And with presented nakedness outface [stand up
to]
The winds and persecutions of the sky.
The country gives me proof and precedent
15
Of Bedlam beggars, who with roaring voices,
Strike in their numb’d and mortified bare arms
Pins, wooden pricks, nails, sprigs of rosemary; [The
country . . . rosemary: Beggars
from Bethlehem Hospital, the lunatic asylum in London, roam this
country. They have roaring voices and they stick pins, nails, and
other
sharp objects into their bare arms. So, in my disguise, I will fit
right in with them.]
And with this horrible object, from low farms,
Poor pelting villages, sheep-cotes, and mills,
20
Sometime with lunatic bans, sometime with
prayers,
Enforce their charity. Poor Turlygood! poor Tom!
That’s something yet: Edgar I nothing am. [Exit.
[And with this . . . nothing am: With their frightful appearance
and
voices, they intimidate farmers, villagers, shepherds, and others
into
giving them alms. These people have pity on poor Turlygood [a name
Edgar made up]
and poor Tom.

Act
2, Scene 4

Before GLOUCESTER’S
castle. KENT in the stocks.Enter LEAR, fool, and
gentleman.
LEAR: ’Tis strange that they should so depart from
home,
And not send back my messenger.
['This strange . . . remove: It's strange that Regan and Cornwall
should leave their home without sending back my messenger.] GENTLEMAN: As I
learn’d,
5
The night before there was no purpose in them
Of this remove. [As I
. . . remove: As I found out, there was no apparent reason for
them to leave home.]
KENT: Hail to thee, noble master!
LEAR: Ha!
Mak’st thou this shame [being in stocks] thy
pastime?
10
KENT: No, my lord. FOOL: Ha, ha! he wears
cruel garters [the part of the stocks clamping in his feet].
Horses are tied by the head, dogs and bears by the neck, monkeys
by the
loins, and men by the legs: when a man is over-lusty at legs, then
he
wears wooden nether-stocks. [when
a man . . . nether-stocks: When
a man tends to wander with mischief in mind, he must be outfitted
with
wooden stockings—that is, he must be put in the stocks.]
LEAR: What’s he that hath so much thy place
mistook
To set thee here? [What's
he . . . here: Who mistook your intentions so much that he put you
in stocks?]
KENT: It is both he and she,
15
Your son and daughter.
LEAR: No.
KENT: Yes.
LEAR: No, I say.
KENT: I say, yea.
20
LEAR: No, no; they would not.
KENT: Yes, they have.
LEAR: By Jupiter [the Roman name for Zeus, the king
of the Olympian gods in Greek mythology], I swear,
no.
KENT: By Juno [the Roman name for Hera, the queen
of the Olympian gods in Greek mythology], I swear,
ay.
LEAR: They durst not [would not dare] do ’t;
25
They could not, would not do ’t; ’tis worse than
murder,
To do upon respect such violent outrage [to
disrespect a king's messenger so outrageously].
Resolve me, with all modest haste, which way
Thou mightst deserve, or they impose, this
usage,
Coming from us.
30[Resolve
me . . . from us: Explain to me
quickly what you did to deserve this humiliation or, if you did
nothing
offensive, what motivated them to impose it on you.]
KENT: My lord, when at their home
I did commend your highness’ letters to them,
Ere I was risen from the place that show’d
My duty kneeling, there came a reeking post,
Stew’d in his haste, half breathless, panting
forth
35
From Goneril his mistress salutations; Deliver’d letters, spite of
intermission,
Which presently they read: on whose contents
They summon’d up their meiny, straight took horse; [there
came . . . horse: A
messenger came, stinking of sweat and nearly out of breath, who
conveyed greetings and best wishes from Goneril to Regan and
Cornwall.
This messenger gave them letters, which they read before I
received a
response from the letters I delivered. Then they summoned
attendants
and mounted their horses.]
Commanded me to follow, and attend
40
The leisure of their answer; gave me cold looks:
And meeting here the other messenger,
Whose welcome, I perceiv’d, had poison’d mine,—
Being the very fellow which of late
Display’d so saucily against your highness,—
45
Having more man than wit about me,—drew:
He rais’d the house with loud and coward cries.
[Commanded
.
. . cries: Regan and Cornwall commanded me to follow them and
await
their answer to the letters I delivered. They were cold toward me.
After we arrived here, I ran into their steward, Oswald, the very
fellow who recently insulted you (see 1.4.47-560). Remembering his
treatment of you, I drew my sword on him and—coward that he
is—cried
out .]
Your son and daughter found this trespass [my
behavior]
worth
The shame which here it suffers [the shame which I suffer
locked in these stocks]. Winter’s not gone yet,
if the wild geese fly that
way. [There's plenty of winter left—that is, there's
still plenty of trouble ahead.]
50 [

Fathers that wear rags
Do make their children blind,
But fathers that bear bags
Shall see their children kind.
Fortune, that arrant
whore,
55
Ne’er turns the key to the poor.
[Fathers . . . poor: When a father wears rags, his children pay
him no
heed. But when he bears money bags, they lavish attention on
him. Luck,
that thoroughgoing whore, never opens doors for the poor.]

But for all this thou shalt have as many dolours [sorrows
or heartaches] for thy daughters as thou
canst tell in a year.
LEAR: O! how this mother swells up toward my heart; [O!
how . . . heart: O! how I am like a woman overcome with emotions]
Hysterica passio! down, thou climbing sorrow!
Thy element’s below. Where is this daughter?
60[Hysterica
passio . . . below: Lear
alludes to an affliction of women in which
hysteria, or wild and uncontrollable emotions, arise from the
womb,
referred to in the phrase "thy element's below." Shakespeare's
purpose
is simply to point out that Lear is upset, like a woman with
hysterica
passio. It is interesting to note that woman was another name for hysterica passion.]
KENT: [Your daughter is] With the earl, sir: here
within.
LEAR: Follow me not; stay here.
[Exit.
GENTLEMAN: Made you no more offence than what you speak
of?
KENT: None.
How chance the king comes with so small a
number?
65
An [if]
thou hadst been set i’ the stocks for that question, thou hadst
well deserved it.
KENT: Why, fool?
We’ll set thee to school to an ant, to teach thee
there’s no labouring i’ the winter. [We'll
teach you what ants know: that there's no sense looking for
food in winter, when there are no picnics or other outings.]
All that follow their noses are led
by their eyes but blind men; and there’s not a nose among twenty
but
can smell him that’s stinking. [Even blind men can smell the
stench of
Lear's headstrong behavior and problems with his daughters. Let go
thy
hold when a great wheel runs
down a hill, lest it break thy neck with following it; but the
great
one that goes up the hill, let him draw thee after. [Don't
hold on to a wheel running downhill, lest it break your neck. But
follow a wheel going uphill.] When a wise man
gives thee better counsel, give me mine again [give
back my counsel]:
I would have none but
knaves follow it, since a fool gives it.
That sir which serves and seeks for gain,
And follows but
for form,
70
Will pack when it begins to rain,
And leave thee in the storm. [That
sir . . . the storm: The man who
serves you only to fatten his purse and who pretends to be loyal
to you
will abandon you when it rains, leaving you to fend for yourself.]
But I will tarry; the fool will stay,
And let the wise man fly:
The knave turns fool that
runs away;
75
The fool no knave, perdy. [The
knave . . . perdy: The knave who runs away turns into a fool. But
a fool like me is no knave, by God. (Perdy derives from the French phrase par dieu, meaning by God.)]
KENT: Where learn’d you this, fool?
FOOL: Not i’ the stocks, fool.
Re-enter LEAR, with GLOUCESTER.
LEAR: Deny to speak with me! They are sick! they are
weary,
80
They have travell’d hard to-night! Mere fetches,
The images of revolt and flying off.
Fetch me a better answer. [Deny
to . . . answer: How dare they
deny to speak with me! They say they are sick and weary from
traveling.
I don't believe a word of it. They are rebelling against me and
flying
off the handle. Go get me a better answer from them.]
GLOUCESTER: My dear lord,
You know the fiery quality of the duke;
85
How unremovable and fix’d he is
In his own course.
LEAR: Vengeance! plague! death! confusion!
Fiery! what quality? [reference to line 85] Why, Gloucester,
Gloucester,
I’d speak with the Duke of Cornwall and his
wife.
90
GLOUCESTER: Well, my good lord, I have inform’d them
so.
LEAR: Inform’d them! Dost thou understand me,
man?
GLOUCESTER: Ay, my good lord.
LEAR: The king would speak with Cornwall; the dear
father
Would with his daughter speak, commands her
service:
95
Are they inform’d of this? My breath and blood!
Fiery! the fiery duke! Tell the hot duke that—
No, but not yet; may be he is not well:
Infirmity doth still neglect all office
Whereto our health is bound; we are not
ourselves
100
When nature, being oppress’d, commands the mind
To suffer with the body. I’ll forbear;
And am fall’n out with my more headier will,
To take the indispos’d and sickly fit
For the sound man. Death on my state! [Looking on
KENT.]
Wherefore
105Should he sit here? This act
persuades me
That this remotion of the duke and her
Is practice only. Give me my servant forth. [No,
but . . . servant forth: No, wait
a
minute. Maybe he really is not well. Illness makes us neglect our
duties. We are not ourselves when nature makes the mind suffer
with the
body. I'll wait rather than giving in to my suspicion that these
apparently indisposed and sickly people are really healthy. Curse
my
kingly power and kingdom! Why should my servant (the disguised
Kent) have to sit here? This act of
humiliation against him convinces me of their hostility toward me.
Gloucester, I want them to release my servant.]
Go, tell the duke and’s wife I’d speak with
them,
Now, presently: bid them come forth and hear me,
110
Or at their chamber-door I’ll beat the drum
Till it cry sleep to death.
GLOUCESTER: I would have all well betwixt [between] you.
[Exit.
LEAR: O, me! my heart, my rising heart! but, down! [O, my
heart is beating so hard I feel it in my throat. Down, heart!]
FOOL: Cry to it, nuncle, as the cockney [lower-class
resident of East London] did to the eels
when she put ’em i’ the paste [for pies] alive; she knapped ’em o’ the coxcombs
[struck them on the head] with a stick, and cried, ‘Down, wantons, down!’
’Twas her brother that,
in pure kindness to his horse, buttered his hay.
115
Enter CORNWALL, REGAN, GLOUCESTER, and servants.

LEAR: Good morrow to you both.
CORNWALL: Hail to your Grace! [KENT is set at
liberty.
REGAN: I am glad to see your highness.
LEAR: Regan, I think you are; I know what
reason
120
I have to think so: if thou shouldst not be
glad,
I would divorce me from thy mother’s tomb,
Sepulchring an adult’ress.—[To KENT.] O! are you
free? [Regan,
I think . . . you free: Regan,
I think you are glad to see me. Here's why. If you weren't glad,
I'd
sever my association with your dead mother. You see, she was an
adultress. O, Kent, I see that you're free.] Some other time for
that. Beloved Regan,
Thy sister’s naught [a worthless woman; a
good-for-nothing]: O Regan! she hath tied
125
Sharp-tooth’d unkindness, like a vulture, here: [Points to
his heart.
I can scarce speak to thee; thou’lt not believe
With how deprav’d a quality—O Regan!
REGAN: I pray you, sir, take patience. I have
hope
You less know how to value her desert
130
Than she to scant her duty. [I
pray . . . duty: Please be patient,
sir. I don't believe she neglected her duty to you. Rather, I
think you
don't know how to appreciate her good qualities.]
LEAR: Say, how is that? [What do
you mean?]
REGAN: I cannot think my sister in the
least
Would fail her obligation: if, sir, perchance
She have restrain’d the riots of your followers,
135
’Tis on such ground, and to such wholesome end,
As clears her from all blame. [if,
sir . . . blame: If, sir,
perchance she restrained the riotous behavior of your followers,
it was
to bring calm and peace. You can't blame her for doing that.]
LEAR: My curses on her!
REGAN: O, sir! you are old;
Nature in you stands on the very verge
140
Of her confine: you should be rul’d and led
By some discretion that discerns your state
Better than you yourself. Therefore I pray you [Nature
in . . . you yourself: You are
trying to extend your abilities beyond the limits that your
advanced
age has imposed. You should be cared for by someone who better
perceives the state of your mental and physical health.]
That to our sister you do make return;
Say, you have wrong’d her, sir.
145
LEAR: Ask her forgiveness?
Do you but mark how this becomes the house [reflects on my royal
authority]?
Dear daughter, I confess that I am old;
Age is unnecessary [inconvenient; burdensome;
worthless]: on
my knees I beg [Kneeling.
That you’ll vouchsafe me raiment [clothing], bed, and
food.’
150
REGAN: Good sir, no more; these are unsightly tricks [these
pleas are below your dignity]:
Return you to my sister.
LEAR: [Rising.] Never, Regan.
She hath abated me of [has taken from me] half my
train;
Look’d black upon me; struck me with her tongue,
155
Most serpent-like, upon the very heart.
All the stor’d vengeances of heaven fall
On her ingrateful top [head]! Strike her young
bones,
You taking airs, with lameness! [Strike
her . . . lameness: May diseases in the air strike her with
lameness!]
CORNWALL: Fie, sir,
fie! [Come now, sir, come now!]
160
LEAR: You nimble lightnings, dart your blinding
flames
Into her scornful eyes! Infect her beauty,
You fen-suck’d fogs, drawn by the powerful sun,
To fall [fall on her] and blast her pride!
REGAN: O the blest gods! So will you wish on
me,
165
When the rash mood is on. [So
will . . . is on: You will wish the same for me when you're in a
foul mood.]
LEAR: No, Regan, thou shalt never have my
curse:
Thy tender-hefted [gently made] nature shall not
give
Thee o’er to harshness: her eyes are fierce, but
thine
Do comfort and not burn. ’Tis not in thee
170
To grudge [begrudge me] my pleasures, to cut off my train [chase
away my knights and attendants],
To bandy hasty words [speak rudely to me], to scant my sizes [lessen
my allowance],
And, in conclusion, to oppose the bolt [lock the
door]
Against my coming in: thou better know’st
The offices of nature, bond of childhood,
175
Effects of courtesy, dues of gratitude;
Thy half o’ the kingdom hast thou not forgot,
Wherein I thee endow’d.
REGAN: Good sir, to the purpose [Good
sir, tell me what you're getting at].
LEAR: Who put my man i’ the stocks? [Tucket
within.
180[Tucket
within: Sounding of a trumpet offstage.]
CORNWALL: What trumpet’s that?
REGAN: I know ’t, my sister’s; this approves her
letter, [this
. . . letter: Her arrival confirms what she said in her letter.]
That she would soon be here. Is your lady come?
Enter OSWALD.
LEAR: This is a slave, whose easy-borrow’d
pride
185
Dwells in the fickle grace of her he follows. [This
. . . follows: This is a slave to the will of Goneril. He takes
pride in serving her.] Out, varlet [villain], from my
sight!
CORNWALL: What means your Grace?
LEAR: Who stock’d my servant? Regan, I have good
hope
Thou didst not know on ’t [know about it]. Who comes here? O
heavens,
190
Enter GONERIL.
If you do love old men, if your sweet sway
Allow obedience, if yourselves are old,
Make it your cause; send down and take my part!
[O
heavens . . . my part: O heavens,
if you love old men, if you approve of obedience, if you
yourselves are
old, then take up my cause and send down someone to support me.]
[To GONERIL.] Art not asham’d to look upon this
beard?
195
O Regan, wilt thou take her by the hand?
GONERIL: Why not by the hand, sir? How have I
offended?
All’s not offence that indiscretion finds
And dotage terms so. [All's
not . . . terms so: Not everything is an offense just because a
foolish old man says so.]
LEAR: O sides! you are
too tough;
200
Will you yet hold? How came my man i’ the
stocks? [O
sides . . . stocks: O, are the
sides of my body strong enough to hold in my grief at the behavior
of
this daughter? Who put my man in the stocks?]
CORNWALL: I set him there, sir: but his own
disorders
Deserv’d much less advancement. [Deserv'd
. . . advancement: Deserved a more severe punishment]
LEAR: You! did you?
REGAN: I pray you, father, being weak, seem
so.
205
If, till the expiration of your month,
You will return and sojourn with my sister,
Dismissing half your train, come then to me:
I am now from home, and out of that provision
Which shall be needful for your entertainment.
210[I
pray . . . entertainment: Please,
father, you're weak and frail. Don't act like a younger and
stronger
man. Now then, you were supposed to stay with my sister for a
month. So
return with her to her home, dismissing half your knights, then
you can
come and stay with me. I can't host you now, for I am spending
time
away from home. Moreover, I am out of the provisions you require
to
maintain your comfort and well-being.]
LEAR: Return to her? and fifty men
dismiss’d!
No, rather I abjure all roofs [I won't stay with anybody], and
choose
To wage against the enmity o’ the air; [to take
my chances in the open air]
To be a comrade with the wolf and owl,
Necessity’s sharp pinch! Return with her!
215[To
be . . . with her: To live with
the wolf and owl and face the harshness of poverty and
deprivation. But
to return with Goneril!]
Why, the hot-blooded France [King of France], that dowerless took [that
accepted without a dowery]
Our youngest born [Cordelia], I could as well be
brought
To knee his throne, and, squire-like, pension beg
To keep base life afoot. Return with her! [To
kneel . . . afoot: To kneel before his throne and, like a humble
squire, beg for a pension to keep me alive]
Persuade me rather to be slave and sumpter
220
To this detested groom. [Pointing at
OSWALD. [Persuade
be . . . groom: Persuade me
instead to be a slave and packhorse (sumpter, line 220) to this detested fellow
Oswald, who is no more than a stableboy.]
GONERIL: At your choice, sir.
LEAR: I prithee, daughter, do not make me
mad:
I will not trouble thee, my child; farewell.
We’ll no more meet, no more see one another;
225
But yet thou art my flesh, my blood, my
daughter;
Or rather a disease that’s in my flesh,
Which I must needs call mine: thou art a boil,
A plague-sore, an embossed carbuncle [skin
infection that exudes pus],
In my corrupted blood. But I’ll not chide thee;
230
Let shame come when it will, I do not call it:
I do not bid the thunder-bearer shoot,
Nor tell tales of thee to high-judging Jove. [But
I'll . . . Jove: But I won't
scold you. Rather, I'll let shame come upon you in its own good
time. I
won't ask the gods to strike you with lightning. Nor will I tell
tales
about you to them.]
Mend when thou canst; be better at thy leisure: [Mend
your ways when you have time.]
I can be patient; I can stay with Regan,
235
I and my hundred knights.
REGAN: Not altogether so:
I look’d not for you yet, nor am provided
For your fit welcome. Give ear, sir, to my
sister;
For those that mingle reason with your passion
240
Must be content to think you old, and so—
But she knows what she does. [Not
altogether . . . she does:
Not really. I was not expecting you to come at this time and have
not
prepared for your sojourn. What you should do is listen to what
Goneril
says. We who are trying to be reasonable can only conclude that
your
distress is due to your advanced age, and so—. Well, Goneril knows
what
she is doing.]
LEAR: Is this well spoken! [You
can't mean what you're saying.]
REGAN: I dare avouch it, sir: what! fifty
followers?
Is it not well? What should you need of more?
245
Yea, or so many, sith that both charge and
danger
Speak ’gainst so great a number? How, in one
house,
Should many people, under two commands,
Hold amity? ’Tis hard; almost impossible. [I
dare . . . impossible: I do mean
it. Why do you need more than fifty followers? Or even that many,
considering the cost of hosting them and the uproar they cause.
How, in
one house, can so many people obey two commanders, you and
Goneril? How
can we expect them to remain peaceful? It's hard—almost
impossible—to
believe that everything will work out.]
GONERIL: Why might not you, my lord, receive
attendance [attention]
250
From those that she calls servants, or from
mine?
REGAN: Why not, my lord? If then they chanc’d to slack [slight;
offend; ignore]
you
We could control them. If you will come to me,—
For now I spy a danger, [I see problems if you come with
too many knights]—I entreat you
To bring but five-and-twenty; to no more
255
Will I give place or notice.
LEAR: I gave you all—[I gave you everything I have.]
REGAN: And in good time you gave it. [It was
about time.]
LEAR: Made you my guardians, my depositaries [trustees],
But kept a reservation to be follow’d
260
With such a number. What! must I come to you [But
kept . . . number: But made you promise to allow me to keep a
hundred knights] With five-and-twenty?
Regan, said you so?
REGAN: And speak ’t again, my lord; no more with me. [I'll
repeat: no more than twenty-five.]
LEAR: Those wicked creatures yet do look
well-favour’d,
When others are more wicked; not being the worst
265
Stands in some rank of praise. [To GONERIL.] I’ll go
with thee:
Thy fifty yet doth double five-and-twenty,
And thou art twice her love. [Those
wicked . . . her love: Wicked
creatures look good when compared with creatures who are even more
wicked. Therefore, not being the most wicked of creatures is a
state
that deserves some praise. Goneril, I'll go with you. You appear
to
have twice as much love for me as Regan does.]
GONERIL: Hear me, my lord.
What need you five-and-twenty, ten, or five,
270
To follow in a house, where twice so many
Have a command to tend you? [What
need . . . tend you: Why do you need so many followers when I have
a full staff to attend you?]
REGAN: What need one? [Why do you need even one
follower?]
LEAR: O! reason not the need; our basest
beggars
Are in the poorest thing superfluous:
275
Allow not nature more than nature needs,
Man’s life is cheap as beast’s. Thou art a lady;
If only to go warm were gorgeous,
Why, nature needs not what thou gorgeous
wear’st,
Which scarcely keeps thee warm. But, for true
need,—
280
You heavens, give me that patience, patience I
need!
You see me here, you gods, a poor old man,
As full of grief as age; wretched in both! [O!
Don't speak of need as a reason
for keeping something. Even our lowliest beggars have things they
don't really need. When you don't allow a man to have more than he
needs—but permit him only the barest essentials—his life is no
better
than an animal's. You are a lady who wears gorgeous clothes. But
do you
need gorgeous clothes to keep you warm? If you want to focus on
needs,
well, what I really need is patience. I am a poor old man weighted
down
by grief and age.]
If it be you that stir these daughters’ hearts
Against their father, fool me not so much
285
To bear it tamely; touch me with noble anger,
And let not women’s weapons, water-drops,
Stain my man’s cheeks! No, you unnatural hags, [If
it be . . . cheeks: If it is the gods who are stirring my
daughters against me, I won't take the abuse without fighting
back.
When I am angry, women's weapons—such as tears— won't defeat me.]
I will have such revenges on you both
That all the world shall—I will do such things,—
290
What they are yet I know not,—but they shall be
The terrors of the earth. You think I’ll weep;
No, I’ll not weep:
I have full cause of weeping, but this heart
Shall break into a hundred thousand flaws
295
Or ere I’ll weep. O fool! I shall go mad. [Exeunt LEAR,
GLOUCESTER, KENT, and fool. [Or
ere: Before.][Exeunt:
The characters specified leave the stage.]CORNWALL: Let us
withdraw [go into the house]; ’twill be a storm.
[Storm heard at a distance.
REGAN: This house is little: the old man and his
people
Cannot be well bestow’d.
GONERIL: ’Tis his own blame; hath put himself from
rest,
300
And must needs taste his folly. ['Tis
his . . . folly: It's his own
fault that he has put himself in this predicament. Now he has to
face
the consequences of his folly.]
REGAN: For his particular, I’ll receive him
gladly,
But not one follower. [For
his . . . follower: In this case, I'll gladly take him—without a
single knight.]
GONERIL: So am I purpos’d. [I am willing to do the
same.]
Where is my Lord of Gloucester?
305
CORNWALL: Follow’d the old man forth. He is return’d. [He
followed Lear for a while, then returned.]
Re-enter GLOUCESTER.
GLOUCESTER: The king is in high rage.
CORNWALL: Whither [where] is he
going?
GLOUCESTER: He calls to horse; but will I know not
whither.
310[He
calls . . . whither: He called for his horse, but I don't know
where he's going.]
CORNWALL: ’Tis best to give him way; he leads himself. [Let him
go. The only advice he takes is his own.]
GONERIL: My lord, entreat him by no means to
stay. [My
lord . . . stay: Gloucester, don't try to convince him to return.] GLOUCESTER: Alack
[alas]!
the night comes on, and the bleak winds
Do sorely ruffle; for many miles about
There’s scarce a bush.
315
REGAN: O! sir, to wilful men,
The injuries that they themselves procure
Must be their schoolmasters. Shut up your doors;
He is attended with a desperate train,
And what they may incense him to, being apt
320
To have his ear abus’d, wisdom bids fear. [He
is attended . . . fear: He is
accompanied by desperate men. What they may influence him to
do—and
keep in mind that he is apt to take bad advice—makes me fearful of
what will happen next.]
CORNWALL: Shut up your doors, my lord; ’tis a wild
night:
My Regan counsels well: come out o’ the storm
[Exeunt. [Exeunt:
Everyone leaves the stage.]

Act
3, Scene 1

A heath.
A storm, with thunder and lightning. Enter KENT and a gentleman,
meeting.

KENT: Who’s here, beside [besides] foul
weather?
GENTLEMAN: One minded like the weather, most
unquietly. [One
. . . unquietly: One whose state of mind is stormy, like the
weather.] KENT: I know you.
Where’s the king?
5
GENTLEMAN: Contending with the fretful
elements;
Bids the wind blow the earth into the sea,
Or swell the curled waters ’bove the main [above
the mainland],
That things might change or cease; tears his white
hair,
Which the impetuous blasts, with eyeless rage,
10
Catch in their fury, and make nothing of; [tear
his . . . nothing of: Tears out his white hairs, which the wind—in
blind rage—catch and blow away]
Strives in his little world of man to out-scorn
The to-and-fro-conflicting wind and rain. [Strives
. . . rain: Tries to beat back the wind and rain] This night, wherein the
cub-drawn bear would couch,

The lion and the
belly-pinched [hungry] wolf
15
Keep their fur dry, unbonneted he runs,
And bids what will take all. [unbonneted
. . . take all: Without a hat he runs and welcomes the end of the
world.]
KENT: But who is with him?
GENTLEMAN: None but the fool, who labours to
out-jest
His heart-struck injuries.
20[who
. . . injuries: Who tries to ease Lear's emotional pain by telling
jokes]
KENT: Sir, I do know you;
And dare, upon the warrant of my note,
Commend a dear thing to you. There is division,
Although as yet the face of it be cover’d
With mutual cunning, ’twixt Albany and Cornwall;
25[Sir,
I . . . Cornwall: Sir, I think I
know you and trust you. Therefore, I want to confide in you. There
is
division between Albany and Cornwall, although they have tried to
cover
it up through clever machination.]
Who have—as who have not, that their great stars
Thron’d and set high—servants, who seem no less,
Which are to France the spies and speculations
Intelligent of our state; what hath been seen, [Who
have . . . state: Who have servants spying for France]
Either in snuffs [arguments] and packings [plots] of the
dukes,
30[Either
in . . . dukes: Either in the arguments between the dukes or their
plots against each other]
Or the hard rein which both of them have borne
Against the old kind king; or something deeper,
Whereof perchance these are but furnishings; [something
deeper . . . furnishings: Something deeper, suggested by these
outward signs] But, true it is, from
France there comes a power
Into this scatter’d kingdom; who already,
35
Wise in our negligence, have secret feet,
In Some of our best ports, and are at point
To show their open banner. Now to you: [But,
true . . . to you: Whatever the
case, I can tell you that the French have scattered men in ports
throughout our
country in preparation for war. Now to you:]
If on my credit you dare build so far
To make your speed to Dover, you shall find
40
Some that will thank you, making just report
Of how unnatural and bemadding sorrow
The king hath cause to plain.
I am a gentleman of blood and breeding,
And from some knowledge and assurance offer
45
This office to you. [If
on my . . . office to you: If you
believe me, go to Dover to tell the people that the king suffers
great
pain and sorrow and has good reason to complain about who is
causing
his tribulation. I come from a noble family and well know what I
am
doing when I offer this mission to you.]
GENTLEMAN: I will talk further with you.
KENT: No, do not.
For confirmation that I am much more
Than my out-wall [than what I appear to be], open this purse, and
take
50
What it contains. If you shall see Cordelia,—
As doubt not but you shall,—show her this ring,
And she will tell you who your fellow is
That yet you do not know. Fie on this storm! [And
she . . . know: And she will tell you who I am]
I will go seek the king.
55
GENTLEMAN: Give me your hand. Have you no more to
say?
KENT: Few words, but, to effect, more than all
yet;
That, when we have found the king,—in which your
pain
That way, I’ll this,—he that first lights on him
Holla the other. [Exeunt severally.[That,
when . . . the other: That when
we have found the king—you going one way, I going the other—the
one who
first sees the king will summon the other][Exeunt:
Everyone leaves the stage.]

Act
3, Scene 2

Another part of the
heath. Storm still.
Enter LEAR and fool.
LEAR: Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks! rage!
blow!
You cataracts [waterfalls] and hurricanoes [water
spouts or hurricanes], spout
Till you have drench’d our steeples, drown’d the cocks [rooster
figures topping weathervanes on steeples]!
5
You sulphurous and thought-executing fires, [thought-executing
fires: Fires that
burn something with the speed of thought. It is also possible—but
probably not likely—that this phrase refers to fires that burn a
person at the stake for expressing heretical or otherwise
unacceptable
thoughts.]
Vaunt-couriers [forerunners] to oak-cleaving
thunderbolts [lightning bolts that split oak trees],
Singe my white head! And thou, all-shaking
thunder,
Strike flat the thick rotundity [roundness] o’ the
world!
Crack nature’s moulds [molds that shape humans], all germens [seeds
that sprout into humans] spill at once
10
That make ingrateful man!
FOOL: O nuncle, court holy water in a dry house is better
than
this rain-water out o’ door. Good nuncle, in, and ask thy
daughters’
blessing; here’s a night pities neither wise man nor
fool. [court
holy water (noun): Flattering words that produce no result]
LEAR: Rumble thy bellyful! Spit, fire! spout,
rain!
Nor rain, wind, thunder, fire, are my daughters: [Nor
. . . daughters: Rain, wind, thunder, and fire—you are not like my
horrible daughters.]
I tax not you, you elements, with unkindness;
15
I never gave you kingdom, call’d you children,
You owe me no subscription [homage; submission; pledge of
loyalty]: then,
let fall
Your horrible pleasure; here I stand, your
slave,
A poor, infirm, weak, and despis’d old man.
But yet I call you servile ministers,
20
That have with two pernicious daughters join’d
Your high-engender’d battles ’gainst a head
So old and white as this. O! O! ’tis foul. [But
yet . . . foul: Nevertheless, I think you have joined with my two
evil daughters to ruin me. O, it is foul.]
FOOL:

He
that has a house to put his head in has a good head-piece [mind; brain].
The cod-piece that will house[cod-piece: Codpiece, a pouch
with a flap at the crotch of tight pants worn by males. Inside
the pouch is the penis.]
Before the head has any,
The head and he shall louse;
So beggars marry many.
The man that makes his toe
What he his heart should make,
Shall of a corn cry woe,
And turn his sleep to wake.
For there was never yet fair woman but she made mouths in a
glass.
25[The cod-piece . . . glass: The
man
that houses his penis (engages in sexual relations) before he
has a
house to live in will become poor and attract lice. As a beggar,
he
will marry (attract) many lice. The man who pampers his toe but
neglects his heart—that is, pampers his two evil daughters but
neglects the good one in his heart—will develop a painful corn
and
suffer insomnia. Your daughters look at you as they would at a
mirror
and make faces that arouse your emotions.]

Enter KENT.
LEAR: No, I will be the pattern of all
patience;
I will say nothing.
KENT: Who’s there?
FOOL: Marry, here’s grace and a cod-piece; that’s a wise
man and a fool.
30[Marry
. . . fool: By the Virgin Mary, this fellow is a wise man and a
fool.]
KENT: Alas! sir, are you here? things that love
night
Love not such nights as these; the wrathful
skies
Gallow [terrify] the very wanderers of the dark,
And make them keep their caves. Since I was man
Such sheets of fire, such bursts of horrid
thunder,
35
Such groans of roaring wind and rain, I never
Remember to have heard; man’s nature cannot
carry
The affliction nor the fear. [man's
nature . . . fear: Man's nature is not made to endure such fear
and stress.]
LEAR: Let the great gods,
That keep this dreadful pother [commotion; disturbance] o’er our
heads,
40
Find out their enemies now. Tremble, thou
wretch,
That hast within thee undivulged crimes,
Unwhipp’d of justice; hide thee, thou bloody
hand;
Thou perjur’d, and thou simular [pretender; one who
simulates] of
virtue
That art incestuous; caitiff [villain], to pieces
shake,
45[Tremble
. . . pieces shake: Tremble,
you who committed three undivulged and unpunished crimes: murder,
perjury, and incest. Villain, I hope you shake into pieces.]
That under covert and convenient seeming
Hast practis’d on man’s life [wronged people; ruined
lives]; close
pent-up guilts,
Rive your concealing continents, and cry
These dreadful summoners grace. I am a man
More sinn’d against than sinning.
50[close
. . . sinning: Hidden guilts,
break out of your concealment and beg mercy from the dreadful gods
who
storm down their wrath. As for me, I have sinned less than those
who
have sinned against me.]
KENT: Alack [alas]!
bare-headed!
Gracious my lord, hard by here is a hovel [hut;
shack];
Some friendship [protection] will it lend you ’gainst
the tempest;
Repose you there while I to this hard house,—
More harder than the stone whereof ’tis rais’d,—
55
Which even but now, demanding after you,
Denied me to come in, return and force
Their scanted courtesy. [Repose
. . . rais'd: Take shelter in
that hovel while I go to the
house where Goneril and Reagan are staying. Earlier, they refused
to
admit me. They are hardheaded, harder even than the stone of which
the
house is made. Nevertheless, I will try to force them to open the
door.]
LEAR: My wits begin to turn [I am
going out of my mind].
Come on, my boy [fool]. How dost, my boy? Art
cold?
60
I am cold myself. Where is this straw [straw
hut; hovel], my
fellow?
The art of our necessities is strange,
That can make vile things precious. Come, your hovel.
Poor fool and knave, I have
one part in my heart
That’s sorry yet for thee.
65[The
art . . . yet for thee: When you are in
need, vile things like hovels become precious. Come, take me to
the
hovel. You poor fool, I feel sorry for you.]
FOOL:

He
that has a little tiny wit,
With hey, ho, the wind and the rain,
Must make content with his fortunes fit,
Though the rain it raineth every day.

[The
dimwit must make-do with what fortune brings him even if the rain
falls every day.]
LEAR: True, my good boy. Come, bring us to this hovel.
[Exeunt LEAR and KENT. [Exeunt: The characters specified leave the stage.]
FOOL: This is a brave night to cool [satisfy
the hot passions of] a courtezan. [courtezan:
Courtesan, a prostitute or mistress who usually serves men of
royalty or nobility.]
I’ll speak a prophecy ere [before] I go:

When
priests are more in
word than matter; [when priests
sin while preaching against sin]
70
When brewers mar [dilute]
their malt with water;
When nobles are their tailors’ tutors [young noblemen were very particular about the appearance
of their apparel];
No heretics burn’d, but wenches’ suitors; [No heretics . . . suitors: When
no
heretics burn at the stake, but lusty suitors of wayward young
women
suffer the burning pain of syphilis]
When every case in law is right [just;
fair];
No squire in debt, nor no
poor knight;
75
When slanders do not live in tongues;
Nor cutpurses come not to throngs;[Nor . . . throngs: Nor
pickpockets and other thieves prey on crowds]
When usurers tell their gold i’ the field;[When usurers . . . field: When
moneylenders who charge interest count their profit before the
public eye]
And bawds and whores do churches build;
Then shall the realm of
Albion [England]
80
Come to great confusion [turbulence;
upheaval; ruin]:
Then comes the time, who lives to see ’t,
That going shall be us’d with feet [that feet will be the only means of travel, as in the
time of cave men.]
This prophecy Merlin [fabled
magician of the legendary King Arthur] shall make; for I
live before his time. [Exit.

Comment: According to Arthurian legend, Merlin composed verses
predicting the end of the world. The fool imitates Merlin's
practice.
In the last line, Shakespeare (speaking through the fool) calls
attention to a deliberate anachronism: that Lear and the fool
lived
many years before the birth of Merlin. The fool's prophecy is in
keeping with the theme of the terrifying and destructive force of
the
storm.

Act
3, Scene 3

A room in GLOUCESTER’S
castle.
Enter GLOUCESTER and EDMUND.

GLOUCESTER: Alack, alack! Edmund, I like not this unnatural
dealing. [Alas, alas, Edmund. I don't like the frightful
result of my dealings with Cornwall and Regan.] When I desired their leave
that I might pity him [Lear],
they took from me the use of mine own house; charged me, on pain
of
their perpetual displeasure, neither to speak of him, entreat for
him,
nor any way sustain him.
EDMUND: Most savage, and unnatural!
GLOUCESTER: Go to; say you nothing [Please
let me speak without interruption].
There is division between the dukes, and a worse matter than that.
I
have received a letter this night; ’tis dangerous to be spoken; I
have
locked the letter in my closet. These injuries the king now bears
will
be revenged home; there’s part of a power [an army] already footed [already
landed in England]; we must incline to [support] the king. I will seek him
and privily relieve [assist] him; go you and maintain
talk with the duke, that my charity be not of him perceived [go talk
with Cornwall to divert attention from my effort to help King
Lear]. If he
ask for me, [say that] I am ill and gone to bed. If I die for it, as no less
is threatened me, the king, my old master, must be relieved. [I don't
care if they carry out their threat to kill me; I must help the
king.] There is
some strange thing toward [in store; about to happen], Edmund; pray you, be
careful. [Exit.
5

[Edmund
is now alone on the stage talking to himself.]

EDMUND: This courtesy, forbid thee, shall the
duke
Instantly know; and of that letter too:
This seems a fair deserving, and must draw me
That which my father loses; no less than all:
The younger rises when the old doth fall.
[Exit.
10[This
courtesy . . . doth fall: What
you have told me I shall report to the Duke. I'll tell him, too,
about
the letter locked in the closet.You deserve such disloyalty, and I
deserve what you lose. Younger men like me rise when old men like
you
fall.]

Act
3, Scene 4

The heath. Before
a hovel.
Enter LEAR, KENT, and fool.
KENT: Here is the place, my lord; good my lord,
enter:
The tyranny of the open night’s too rough
For nature [our bodies] to endure. [Storm
still.
5
LEAR: Let me alone.
KENT: Good my lord, enter here.
LEAR: Wilt break my heart?
KENT: I’d rather break mine own. Good my lord,
enter.
LEAR: Thou think’st ’tis much that this contentious
storm
10
Invades us to the skin: so ’tis to thee;
But where the greater malady is fix’d,
The lesser is scarce felt. Thou’dst shun a bear;
But if thy flight lay toward the roaring sea,
Thou’dst meet the bear i’ the mouth. When the mind’s
free
15
The body’s delicate; the tempest in my mind
Doth from my senses take all feeling else
Save what beats there. Filial ingratitude! [Thou
think'st . . . ingratitude: You
think it's terrible that this
storm drenches us. But where there is a greater peril, the lesser
one
is hardly noticed. You would run from a bear. But if you escape
only by
jumping into a roaring sea, you would stand your ground and face
the
bear. When you have no worries on your mind, you focus your mind
on any unpleasant sensations your body experiences. Right now
I have a storm in my mind that commands all of my attention. That
storm
rains on me the igratitude of my daughters!]
Is it not as this mouth should tear this hand
For lifting food to ’t? But I will punish home:
20[Is
it . . . home: They are like the mouth that bites the hand feeding
it. But I will punish them.]
No, I will weep no more. In such a night
To shut me out! Pour on; I will endure.
In such a night as this! O Regan, Goneril!
Your old kind father, whose frank heart gave
all,—
O! that way madness lies; let me shun that;
25
No more of that. [O!
that way . . . of that: O! If I
concentrate on the ingratitude of Goneril and Regan, I will go
insane.
Let me stop thinking about it. No more of that.]
KENT: Good, my lord, enter here.
LEAR: Prithee, go in thyself; seek thine own
ease:
This tempest will not give me leave to ponder
On things would hurt me more. But I’ll go in.
30[This
tempest . . . go in: This storm prevents me from thinking about
things that disturb me. Nevertheless, I'll go in.]
[To the Fool.] In, boy; go first. You houseless poverty,— [You
homeless poor people,—]
Nay, get thee in. I’ll pray, and then I’ll sleep. [Fool goes
in.
Poor naked wretches, wheresoe’er you are,
That bide the pelting of this pitiless storm,
How shall your houseless heads and unfed sides,
35
Your loop’d and window’d raggedness, defend you
From seasons such as these? O! I have ta’en
Too little care of this. Take physic, pomp;
Expose thyself to feel what wretches feel,
That thou mayst shake the superflux to them,
40
And show the heavens more just. [Take
physic . . . more just: You who
are rich and powerful should remedy your indifference to poor.
Take
time to expose yourself to what wretches feel so that you may
realize
how important it is to share your wealth (superflux, line 40)
with them. In doing so, you will show that the world and the
heavens
care about them. (These lines—39-41—mark a turning point for Lear
in
that he shifts attention from his own suffering to the suffering
of
those around him.)]
EDGAR: [Within.] Fathom and half, fathom and half!
Poor Tom! [The Fool runs out from the hovel. [Fathom
and half: A fathom was a measure to gauge sea depths. Since a
fathom was equal to six feet, a fathom
and half
was equal to nine feet. Edgar—Gloucester's faithful son, who is
disguised as "Poor Tom"—is grossly exaggerating the depth of the
water
in the hut to express his discomfort.]
FOOL: Come not in here, nuncle; here’s a
spirit.
Help me! help me!
KENT: Give me thy hand. Who’s there?
45
FOOL: A spirit, a spirit: he says his name’s poor
Tom.
KENT: What art thou that dost grumble there i’ the
straw?
Come forth.
Enter EDGAR disguised as a madman.
EDGAR: Away! the foul fiend [Satan] follows
me!
50
Through the sharp hawthorn blow the winds.
Hum! go to thy cold bed and warm thee.
LEAR: Didst thou give all [all your possessions] to thy two
daughters?
And art thou come to this?
EDGAR: Who gives anything to poor Tom? whom the foul fiend
hath led through fire and through flame, through ford and
whirlpool,
o’er bog and quagmire; that hath laid knives under his pillow, and
halters in his pew; set ratsbane by his porridge; made him proud
of
heart, to ride on a bay trotting-horse over four-inched bridges,
to
course his own shadow for a traitor. [Who
gives . . . traitor: Who gives
anything to me, whom the devil has pursued through fire, rivers,
and
whirlpools and over bogs and quicksand? The devil has put knives
under
my pillow, nooses in my church pew, poison next to my porridge.
And he
has made me chase my shadow while riding on horseback across
narrow
bridges. His purpose in all of this was to provide opportunities
for me
to kill myself.]
Bless thy five wits! Tom’s a-cold.
O! do de, do de, do de. Bless thee from whirlwinds, starblasting,
and
taking! Do poor Tom some charity, whom the foul fiend vexes. There
could I have him now, and there, and there again, and there.
[Storm still.
55[five
wits: G. B. Harrison identified the five wits as "common wit,
imagination, fantasy, estimation, and memory" (Shakespeare: the Complete Works. New
York: Harcourt, 1952 (page 1163).]
LEAR: What! have his daughters brought him to this pass [madness]?
Couldst thou save nothing? Didst thou give them all [all your
possessions]?
FOOL: Nay, he reserved a blanket, else we had been all
shamed. [Nay
. . . shamed: No, he reserved a blanket with which to hide his
nakedness and save onlookers from embarrassment.]
LEAR: Now all the plagues that in the pendulous
air
Hang fated o’er men’s faults light on thy
daughters!
60[Now
. . . daughters: Now I hope that all the plagues suffered by
evildoers will settle on your daughters.]
KENT: He hath no daughters, sir.
LEAR: Death, traitor! [That's poppycock, you
traitor!]
nothing could have subdu’d nature [a man]
To such a lowness, but his unkind daughters.
Is it the fashion that discarded fathers
Should have thus little mercy on their flesh?
65
Judicious punishment! ’twas this flesh begot
Those pelican daughters.

[Judicious punishment: It is just for
disloyal daughters to suffer plagues.][pelican: Bird of prey. Lear is
saying his daughters prey on him.]

EDGAR: Pillicock [obsolete word for penis] sat on Pillicock-hill [hill:
female sex organ]:
Halloo, halloo, loo, loo!
FOOL: This cold night will turn us all to fools and
madmen.
70
EDGAR: Take heed o’ the foul fiend [devil]. Obey thy parents; keep
thy word justly; swear not; commit not with man’s sworn spouse [don't
commit adultery];
set not
thy sweet heart on proud array [suppress your desire to wear
fancy clothes].
Tom’s a-cold.
LEAR: What hast thou been [what was your occupation]?
EDGAR: A servingman, proud in heart and mind; that curled my
hair, wore gloves in my cap, served the lust of my mistress’s
heart,
and did the act of darkness with her; swore as many oaths as I
spake
words, and broke them in the sweet face of heaven; one that slept
in
the contriving of lust, and waked to do it. [A
servingman . . . do it: I was a
proud servant who curled his hair, wore the gloves of his mistress
in
his hat, and satisfied her lust. I made promises, then broke them.
I
dreamed of having sex and woke up to have it.]
Wine loved I deeply, dice
dearly, and in woman out-paramoured the Turk [and in
lust outdid the Turkish ruler with a harem]: false of heart, light of
ear, bloody of hand; hog in sloth, fox in stealth, wolf in
greediness,
dog in madness, lion in prey. Let not the creaking of shoes nor
the
rustling of silks betray thy poor heart to woman [don't
allow a woman to know what is in your heart]: keep thy foot out of
brothels, thy hand out of plackets [petticoats], thy pen from lenders’ [moneylenders'] books, and
defy the foul fiend. Still through the hawthorn blows the cold
wind;
says, "suum, mun ha no nonny" [suum . . . nonny: nonsense
words spoken by the wind].
Dolphin [imaginary horse] my boy, my boy; sessa [corruption
of the French word cessez,
meaning stop] ! let him trot
by. [Storm still.
LEAR: Why, thou wert better in thy grave than to answer
with thy uncovered body this extremity of the skies. [You'd be
better off dead than to speak to the stormy skies.] Is man no more
than this? [Is a human so low a wretch as this man?] Consider him well. Thou
owest the worm no silk, the beast no
hide, the sheep no wool, the cat no perfume [In
your nakedness, you don't owe the creatures of nature anything for
the
clothes they provide—not the silkworm; not cattle, goats, or other
animals that provide skin to make leather; not sheep that provide
wool
for garments; not the civet (catlike mammal that secretes a
fluid used to make perfume)]. Ha! here’s three on ’s are
sophisticated; thou art the thing itself; [Ha! We
three (Lear, Kent, the fool) are cultured, noble, and wealthy
compared to you. You are poverty and ignorance]; unaccommodated [unsophisticated;
uncivilized]
man is no more
but such a poor, bare, forked animal as thou art. Off, off, you
lendings [clothes made from animal parts; clothes that
animals "lent" to humans]! Come; unbutton here. [Tearing off his
clothes.
FOOL: Prithee, nuncle, be contented; ’tis a naughty night
to swim in. Now a little fire in a wide field were like an old
lecher’s
heart; a small spark, all the rest on ’s body cold [a small
spark in a cold body]. Look! here comes a
walking fire.
75
Enter GLOUCESTER with a torch
EDGAR: This is the foul fiend Flibbertigibbet [scatterbrain;
silly person; irresponsible person]: he begins at
curfew [dusk; nightfall], and walks till the first cock [till the
rooster crows];
he gives the web and the pin,
squints the eye [he gives you eyes diseases (the web and the pin) that
make you squint],
and makes the harelip [makes you develop a harelip]; mildews [ruins;
rots] the white
wheat, and
hurts the poor creature of earth.

Swithold
footed thrice the 'old;[Saint Swithold three times
crossed the wold (hilly open land)]
He met the night-mare [night
spirit riding a horse; witch riding a horse], and her
nine-fold [nine children];
Bid her alight [asked her to
dismount],
And her troth plight [and
promised good will],
And aroint [begone; leave; go]
thee, witch, aroint thee!

KENT: How fares your Grace?
LEAR: What’s he? [Lear points to Gloucester.]
KENT: Who’s there? What is ’t you seek?
80
GLOUCESTER: What are you there? Your
names?
EDGAR: Poor Tom; that eats the swimming frog; the toad, the
tadpole, the wall-newt [salamander], and the water; that in the
fury of his heart,
when the foul fiend rages, eats cow-dung for sallets [salads]; swallows the old
rat and the ditch-dog [dead dog found in a ditch]; drinks, the green mantle [scum] of the standing pool;
who is whipped from tithing to tithing [from one
place to another], and stock-punished [put in stocks], and
imprisoned; who hath had [who in more prosperous days had] three suits to his back,
six shirts to his
body, horse to ride, and weapon to wear;

But
mice and rats and such small deer
Have been Tom’s food for seven long year.

Beware my follower. Peace, Smulkin! [name of
a demon] peace,
thou fiend.
85
GLOUCESTER: What! hath your Grace no better
company?
EDGAR: The prince of darkness is a
gentleman;
Modo he’s call’d, and Mahu.
GLOUCESTER: Our flesh and blood, my lord, is grown so
vile,
That it doth hate what gets [begets] it.
90
EDGAR: Poor Tom’s a-cold.
GLOUCESTER: Go in [my house] with me. My duty cannot
suffer
To obey in all your daughters’ hard commands:
Though their injunction [will; desire] be to bar my
doors,
And let this tyrannous night take hold upon you,
95
Yet have I ventur’d to come seek you out
And bring you where both fire and food is ready.
LEAR: First let me talk with this
philosopher.
What is the cause of thunder?
KENT: Good my lord, take his offer; go into the
house.
100
LEAR: I’ll talk a word with this same learned
Theban. [Theban:
Resident of the ancient Greek city of Thebes. Here, Theban refers to Edgar as if
he were a Greek philosopher.]
What is your study?
EDGAR: How to prevent the fiend [thwart
the devil], and
to kill vermin.
LEAR: Let me ask you one word in private.
KENT: Importune him once more to go, my lord;
105
His wits begin to unsettle. [Importune
. . . unsettle: Ask him
once more to go with you to your house, my lord. He's beginning to
go
mad. Kent is speaking to Gloucester only.]
GLOUCESTER: Canst thou blame him? [Storm
still.
His daughters seek his death. Ah! that good
Kent;
He said it would be thus, poor banish’d man! [Ah!
. . . man: Ah! Kent, you poor banished man, you said it would be
this way.] Thou sayst the king
grows mad; I’ll tell thee, friend,
110
I am almost mad myself. I had a son [Edgar,
disguised as Poor Tom],
Now outlaw’d from my blood; he sought my life [he
wanted to murder me],
But lately, very late; I lov’d him, friend,
No father his son dearer; true to tell thee, [Storm
continues.
The grief hath craz’d my wits. [The grief that he caused me
has made me a little mad.] What a night’s this!
115
I do beseech your Grace,—
LEAR: O! cry you mercy, sir. [Just be
quiet a moment.]
Noble philosopher, your company.
EDGAR: Tom’s a-cold.
GLOUCESTER: In, fellow, there, into the hovel: keep thee
warm.
120
LEAR: Come, let’s in all.
KENT: This way, my lord.
LEAR: With him;
I will keep still with my philosopher. [With
him . . . philosopher: I'll enter the hovel and keep company with
my philosopher, Poor Tom.]
KENT: Good my lord, soothe him; let him take the
fellow.
125[Good
. . . fellow: It's all right, Gloucester. Soothe the king. And let
him go inside with Poor Tom.]
GLOUCESTER: Take him you on. [All
right, Poor Tom can be with us.]
KENT: Sirrah [Edgar], come on; go along with
us.
LEAR: Come, good Athenian.
GLOUCESTER: No words, no words: hush.
EDGAR: Child Rowland to the dark tower
came,
130[Child
Rowland: Roland as a youth.
Roland was a heroic knight in French literature who defended
France
against hostile forces. Although he was a real person (believed to
have
died in 778), he was romanticized and turned into a legend in
stories
about him.]
His word was still, Fie, foh, and fum,
I smell the blood of a British man.
[Exeunt. [Exeunt:
Everyone leaves the stage.]

Act
3, Scene 5

A room in GLOUCESTER’S
castle.Enter CORNWALL and
EDMUND.
CORNWALL: I will have my revenge ere [before] I depart his house.
EDMUND: How, my lord, I may be censured, that nature thus
gives way
to loyalty, something fears me to think of. [How
. . . think of: My lord, I fear
to think of how I will be censured (criticized or condemned) for
permitting my natural loyalty to my father to be overcome by
loyalty to
you.]
CORNWALL: I now perceive it was not altogether your
brother’s evil disposition made him seek his death;
but a provoking merit, set a-work by a reproveable badness in
himself.
5[I
now . . . in himself: I now
perceive that your brother, Edgar, had some justification for
seeking
your father's death. For your father has enough badness in him to
provoke attempts on his life.]
EDMUND: How malicious is my fortune, that I must repent to
be just!
This is the letter he spoke of, which approves him an intelligent
party
to the advantages of France. O heavens! that this treason were
not, or
not I the detector! [How
malicious . . . detector: How
unfortunate it is for me that my conscience compels me to expose
my own
father. This is the letter he spoke of. It proves that he is a spy
for
France. O heavens! I wish I had not been the one to detect his
treason.]
CORNWALL: Go with me to the duchess.
EDMUND: If the matter of this paper be certain, you have
mighty business in hand.
CORNWALL: True, or false, it hath made thee Earl of
Gloucester. Seek
out where thy father is, that he may be ready for our
apprehension. [Go tell your father that we plan to arrest
him.]
EDMUND: [Aside.] If I find him comforting the king, it
will
stuff his suspicion more fully. I will persever in my course of
loyalty, though the conflict be sore between that and my
blood.
10[If I
find . . . my blood: If I find
my father doing service to the king, he will appear all the more
guilty. (Edmund spoke this thought under his breath so that
Cornwall
could not hear him. However, he speaks the rest of the line to
Cornwall.) I will persevere in my loyalty to you even though doing
so
will require me to act against my father.]
CORNWALL: I will lay trust upon thee; and thou shalt find a
dearer father in my love. [Exeunt.[Exeunt:
Everyone leaves the stage.]

Act
3, Scene 6

A chamber in a farmhouse
adjoining the castle.Enter GLOUCESTER, LEAR,
KENT, fool, and EDGAR.
GLOUCESTER: Here [this shelter] is better than the open
air; take it thankfully. I will piece out the comfort with what
addition I can [I will get things that will make
you more comfortable]: I will not be long from you.
KENT: All the power of his wits has given way to his
impatience.
[Lear's mind has descended into madness, manifested here
by his
impatience.]
The gods reward your kindness! [Exit
GLOUCESTER.
EDGAR: Frateretto calls me, and tells me Nero is an angler
in the
lake of darkness. Pray, innocent, and beware the foul
fiend.
5[Frateretto
. . . fiend: A devil named
Frateretto tells me that the evil Roman emperor Nero (birth, AD
37;
death, AD 68) is fishing in hell's lake of darkness. Pray,
innocent
fool, and beware of the foul fiends of hell.]
FOOL: Prithee, nuncle, tell me whether a madman be a
gentleman or a yeoman [farmer who works his own land;
servant of a member of nobility or royalty; attendant]!
LEAR: A king, a king!
FOOL: No; he’s a yeoman that has a gentleman to his son; for
he’s
a mad yeoman that sees his son a gentleman before
him. [No .
. . before him: No, he's a
yeoman with a gentleman as a son. Only a madman would allow his
son to
become a gentleman before he, the father, did.] LEAR: To have a
thousand with red burning spits
Come hizzing [hissing] in upon ’em,—
10[O,
to have a thousand devils with burning spits come hissing in upon
my disloyal daughters]
EDGAR: The foul fiend bites my back.
FOOL: He’s mad that trusts in the tameness of a wolf, a
horse’s
health, a boy’s love, or a whore’s oath. [He's
mad . . . oath: If a man trusts
that a wolf is tame, a horse is healthy, a young man's love is
sincere,
or that a whore means what she says, he's mad.]
LEAR: It shall be done; I will arraign them straight.[It
shall . . . straight: I'll put my daughters on trial right now,
even though they are absent.]
[To EDGAR.] Come, sit thou here, most learned justicer [judge];
[To the Fool.] Thou, sapient [wise] sir, sit here. Now, you she
foxes!
15[she
foxes: Lear compares his daughters to female foxes.]
EDGAR: Look, where he stands and glares! wantest thou eyes
at trial, madam? [Look
. . . madam: Look, can't you see
where the devil stands and glares? Don't you want to see what's
happening at your trial?]

Come
o’er the bourn [creek; brook;
stream], Bessy, to me,—

FOOL:

Her
boat hath a leak [she's in her
menstrual period],
And she must not speak
Why she dares not come over
to thee.
20

EDGAR: The foul fiend haunts poor Tom in the voice of a
nightingale. Hopdance [name of a devil] cries in Tom’s belly for
two white herring. Croak
not, black angel; I have no food for thee.
KENT: How do you, sir? Stand you not so amaz’d [Don't
stand there like a statue]:
Will you lie down and rest upon the cushions?
LEAR: I’ll see their trial first. Bring in their
evidence.
[To EDGAR.] Thou robed man of justice, take thy
place;
25
[To the Fool.] And thou, his yoke-fellow of equity [colleague
of the courts; law partner],
Bench [sit] by his side. [To KENT.] You are o’ the
commission [you are also commissioned as a judge],
Sit you too.
EDGAR: Let us deal justly.
Sleepest or wakest thou, jolly shepherd? [Jolly
shepherd, are you asleep or awake? (The shepherd apparently is
neglecting his duty to observe and guard the sheep.)]
Thy sheep be in the corn [Your sheep are in the cornfield];
And for one blast of thy minikin [small; dainty] mouth [horn],
Thy sheep shall take no harm.
Purr! the cat is grey.
30
LEAR: Arraign her first; ’tis Goneril. I here take my oath
before this honourable assembly, she kicked the poor king her
father.
FOOL: Come hither, mistress. Is your name
Goneril?
LEAR: She cannot deny it.
FOOL: Cry you mercy, I took you for a joint-stool [wooden
stool].
LEAR: And here’s another [Regan], whose warp’d looks
proclaim
35
What store her heart is made on [whose monstrous looks
proclaim the evil in her heart]. Stop her there!
Arms, arms, sword, fire! Corruption in the place [There's
disorder in the court]!
False justicer, why hast thou let her ’scape [escape]?
EDGAR: Bless thy five wits!
KENT: O pity! Sir, where is the patience
now
40
That you so oft have boasted to retain?
EDGAR: [Aside.] My tears begin to take his part so
much,
They’ll mar my counterfeiting. [Speaking
to himself so that no others can hear, Edgar says the tears he is
crying for Lear might wash away his disguise.]
LEAR: The little dogs and all,
Tray, Blanch, and Sweet-heart, see, they bark at
me.
45
EDGAR: Tom will throw his head at them. [Tom will
scare them away.]

Avaunt [begone; go away],
you curs!
Be thy mouth or black or white,
Tooth that poisons if it bite; [Tooth . . . bite: With teeth
that wound if they bite]
Mastiff, greyhound, mongrel
grim,
50
Hound or spaniel, brach [female
hound] or lym [dog on a
leash; dog used to chase down wild boar]
Or bobtail tike [dog with a
shortened tail] or trundle-tail [dog with a curled-up tail]
Tom will make them weep and wail:
For, with throwing thus my head,
Dogs leap the hatch, and all
are fled.
55[For . . . are fled: For, simply
by nodding his head at the dogs, he will make them jump up and
run off.]

Do de, de, de. Sessa! Come, march to wakes
and fairs and market-towns. Poor Tom, thy horn is
dry. [horn: Vessel beggars used to
store drinks donated to them.]

LEAR: Then let them anatomize [cut
open] Regan,
see what breeds about
her heart. Is there any cause in nature that makes these hard
hearts? [To EDGAR.] You, sir, I entertain you for one
of my
hundred; only I do not like the fashion of your garments: you will
say,
they are Persian attire; but let them be changed. [You
sir, I entertain . . . changed:
You sir can be one of my one hundred knights. But I don't like
your
clothes. You will say that they are fancy. But change them
nevertheless.]
KENT: Now, good my lord, lie here and rest
awhile.
LEAR: Make no noise, make no noise; draw the [bed] curtains: so,
so, so. We’ll go to supper i’ the morning: so, so,
so.
FOOL: And I’ll go to bed at noon.
60
Re-enter GLOUCESTER.
GLOUCESTER: Come hither, friend: where is the king my
master?
KENT: Here, sir; but trouble him not, his wits are
gone.
GLOUCESTER: Good friend, I prithee, take him in thy
arms;
I have o’erheard a plot of death upon him.
65
There is a litter ready; lay him in ’t,
And drive toward Dover, friend, where thou shalt
meet
Both welcome and protection. Take up thy master:
If thou shouldst dally half an hour, his life,
With thine, and all that offer to defend him,
70
Stand in assured loss. Take up, take up;
And follow me, that will to some provision
Give thee quick conduct.
KENT: Oppress’d nature sleeps [The
abused king sleeps]:
This rest might yet have balm’d [soothed] thy broken sinews [stressed
body],
75
Which, if convenience will not allow,
Stand in hard cure.— [Which . . . cure: But if you can't
continue sleeping now, you will probably continue to suffer
stress.] [To
the fool.] Come, help to bear thy master;
Thou must not stay behind.
GLOUCESTER: Come, come,
away. [Exeunt KENT, GLOUCESTER, and the fool, bearing away
LEAR. [Exeunt: The characters specified leave the stage.]
EDGAR: When we our betters see bearing our
woes,
80
We scarcely think our miseries our foes.Who alone suffers suffers
most i’ the mind ,
Leaving free things and happy shows behind; [When
we . . . behind: When we see our
betters enduring the same suffering that afflicts us, we think
less of
our own miseries. But the person who suffers alone experiences the
greatest mental suffering as he recalls happy times.]
But then the mind much sufferance doth o’erskip,
When grief hath mates, and bearing fellowship.
85
How light and portable my pain seems now,
When that which makes me bend makes the king bow; [But
then . . . king bow: But a man
forgets about his suffering if he knows that others are suffering
in
the same way that he is. Misery loves company. Having company
eases the
pain, especially when the company is the king.]
He childed as I father’d! Tom, away! [He
childed . . . father'd: Lear
suffered because of what his children did. I suffer because of
what my
father mistakenly thinks of me.]
Mark the high noises, and thyself bewray
When false opinion, whose wrong thought defiles
thee,
90
In thy just proof repeals and reconciles thee.
What will hap more to-night, safe ’scape the
king!
Lurk, lurk. [Exit. [Mark
. . . king (A passage in which Edgar as Poor Tom speaks to
himself): Listen
for the noises made by people chasing you. Reveal your true
identity
only when you can disprove false charges against you. Whatever
else
happens tonight, I hope the king escapes safely.]

Act
3, Scene 7

A room in GLOUCESTER’S
castle.
Enter CORNWALL, REGAN, GONERIL, EDMUND, and servants.
CORNWALL: Post speedily to my lord your husband [Albany];
show him this letter: the army of France is landed. Seek out the
traitor Gloucester. [Exeunt some of the
servants. [Exeunt:
The characters specified leave the stage.]
REGAN: Hang him instantly.
GONERIL: Pluck out his eyes.
5
CORNWALL: Leave him to my displeasure. Edmund, keep you our
sister [sister-in-law] company: the revenges we are bound to take upon your
traitorous father are not fit for your beholding. Advise the duke
[Albany],
where you are going, to a most festinate [speedy] preparation [for war]:
we are bound to the like. Our posts shall be swift and intelligent
betwixt us. Farewell, dear sister: farewell, my Lord of Gloucester
[good-bye, Edmund, Lord of Gloucester].
Enter OSWALD.
How now? Where’s the king?
OSWALD: My Lord of Gloucester hath convey’d him
hence:
Some five or six and thirty of his knights,
10
Hot questrists [followers] after him, met him at
gate;
Who, with some other of the lord’s dependants,
Are gone with him toward Dover, where they boast
To have well-armed friends.
CORNWALL: Get horses for
your mistress.
15
GONERIL: Farewell, sweet lord, and sister.
CORNWALL: Edmund, farewell. [Exeunt GONERIL, EDMUND,
and OSWALD.[Exeunt:
The characters specified leave the stage.]
Go seek the traitor Gloucester,
Pinion him [shackle him; bind his hands] like a thief, bring him
before us. [Exeunt other servants. [Exeunt:
The characters specified leave the stage.]
Though well we may not pass upon his life [may not
sentence him to death]
Without the form of justice, yet our power
20
Shall do a courtesy to our wrath, which men
May blame but not control. Who’s there? The
traitor? [yet
our . . . control: But I'll use my power to gain revenge in some
way. Men may blame me, but they won't control me.]
Re-enter servants, with GLOUCESTER.
REGAN: Ingrateful fox! ’tis he.
CORNWALL: Bind fast his corky [dry and
shriveled]
arms.
25
GLOUCESTER: What mean your Graces? Good my friends,
consider
You are my guests: do me no foul play, friends
CORNWALL: Bind him, I say. [Servants bind
him.
REGAN: Hard, hard [Bind him tightly]. O filthy
traitor!
GLOUCESTER: Unmerciful lady as you are, I’m
none.
30
CORNWALL: To this chair bind him. Villain, thou shalt
find— [REGAN plucks his beard.
GLOUCESTER: By the kind gods, ’tis most ignobly
done
To pluck me by the beard.
REGAN: So white, and such a traitor!
GLOUCESTER: Naughty
lady,
35
These hairs, which thou dost ravish from my
chin,
Will quicken [come to life], and accuse thee: I am your
host:
With robbers’ hands my hospitable favours
You should not ruffle thus. What will you do?
CORNWALL: Come, sir, what letters had you late from
France?
40
REGAN: Be simple-answer’d, for we know the
truth.
CORNWALL: And what confederacy [relationship;
conspiracy]
have you with the traitors
Late footed in the kingdom?
REGAN: To whose hands have you sent the lunatic
king?
Speak.
45
GLOUCESTER: I have a letter guessingly set
down,
Which came from one that’s of a neutral heart,
And not from one oppos’d. [I
have . . . oppos'd: I received a
letter that speculated on the events involving England and France.
But
it came from a neutral observer, one who is not opposed to you.]
CORNWALL: Cunning.
REGAN: And false.
50
CORNWALL: Where hast thou sent the king?
GLOUCESTER: To Dover.
REGAN: Wherefore [why] to Dover? Wast thou not
charg’d at peril [Weren't you ordered at peril to] —
CORNWALL: Wherefore to Dover? Let him answer
that.
GLOUCESTER: I am tied to the stake, and I must stand the
course. [I am tied up and have no choice but to put up with
you people.]
55
REGAN: Wherefore to Dover?
GLOUCESTER: Because I would not see thy cruel
nails
Pluck out his poor old eyes; nor thy fierce
sister
In his anointed flesh stick boarish fangs. [Because
. . . fangs: Because I did
not want to see you, Regan, pluck out his eyes. Nor did I want to
see
Goneril sink her boar-like teeth into his flesh.]
The sea, with such a storm as his bare head
60
In hell-black night endur’d, would have buoy’d
up,
And quench’d the stelled fires;[The
sea . . . fires: During the
hellish storm he endured bareheaded in the black night, the sea
would
have pitied him and risen up to extinguish the fire of stars
casting
dim rays on his plight.]
Yet, poor old heart, he holp the heavens to
rain. [Yet
. . . rain: Yet the poor old man cried tears that helped the
heavens to rain.]
If wolves had at thy gate howl’d that dern [terrible] time [of the
storm],
Thou shouldst have said, ‘Good porter, turn the
key,’
65
All cruels else subscrib’d [in spite of the cruelty you
unleash upon others]: but I shall see
The winged vengeance overtake such children. [but
I shall . . . children: But I shall see the day when vengeance
takes its toll on Goneril and Regan.]
CORNWALL: See ’t shalt thou never. Fellows, hold the
chair.
Upon these eyes of thine I’ll set my foot.
GLOUCESTER: He that will think to live till he be
old,
70
Give me some help! O cruel! O ye gods! [GLOUCESTER’S eye put
out. REGAN:
One side will mock another; the other too. [One eye will mock the
other, so gouge out his other eye.]
CORNWALL: If you see vengeance.—
FIRST SERVANT: Hold your hand, my lord:
I have serv’d you ever since I was a child,
75
But better service have I never done you
Than now to bid you hold.
REGAN: How now, you dog! [How dare
you, you dog!]
FIRST SERVANT: If you did wear a beard upon your
chin,
I’d shake it on this quarrel. What do you mean?
80[If
you . . . mean: If you had a beard, I'd pull it. What do you mean
by treating Gloucester this way?]
CORNWALL: My villain! [Draws. [Calling
the servant a villain, Cornwall draws his sword.]
FIRST SERVANT: Nay then, come on, and take the chance of
anger. [Draws. They fight. CORNWALL is
wounded.
REGAN: Give me thy sword. A peasant stand up thus!
[Takes a sword and runs at him behind.
FIRST SERVANT: O! I am slain. My lord, you have one eye
left
To see some mischief on him. O! [Dies.
85
CORNWALL: Lest it see more, prevent it. Out, vile jelly! [Cornwall
puts out his other eye.]
Where is thy lustre now?
GLOUCESTER: All dark and comfortless. Where’s my son
Edmund?
Edmund, enkindle all the sparks of nature
To quit this horrid act.
90
REGAN: Out, treacherous villain!
Thou call’st on him that hates thee; it was he
That made the overture of thy treasons to us,
Who is too good to pity thee.
GLOUCESTER: O my follies! Then Edgar was
abus’d.
95
Kind gods, forgive me that, and prosper him!
REGAN: Go thrust him out at gates, and let him
smell
His way to Dover. [Exit one with GLOUCESTER.] How is
’t, my lord? How look you?
CORNWALL: I have receiv’d a hurt. Follow me,
lady.
Turn out that eyeless villain; throw this slave [the dead
servant]
100
Upon the dunghill [pit on a livestock farm for the
storage of manure]. Regan, I bleed apace:
Untimely comes this hurt. Give me your arm. [Exit CORNWALL
led by REGAN.
SECOND SERVANT: I’ll never care what wickedness I
do
If this man come to good. [I'll
never . . . good: If Cornwall gets off scot free, I'll feel free
to commit any kind of wickedness.]
THIRD SERVANT: If she
live long,
105
And, in the end, meet the old course of death,
Women will all turn monsters. [If
she . . . monsters: If she lives
to an old age and dies of natural causes, then all women will turn
into
monsters if they want to extend their lifespan.]
SECOND SERVANT: Let’s follow the old earl [Gloucester], and get the Bedlam [get the
madman called Poor Tom]
To lead him where he would: his roguish madness
Allows itself to any thing.
110
THIRD SERVANT: Go thou; I’ll fetch some flax [plant
with healing properties], and whites of eggs,
To apply to his bleeding face. Now, heaven help him! [Exeunt
severally. [Exeunt:
Everyone leaves the stage.]

Act
4, Scene 1

The heath.
Enter EDGAR.

EDGAR: Yet better thus, and known to be
contemn’d,
Than still contemn’d and flatter’d. To be worst,
The lowest and most dejected thing of fortune,
5
Stands still in esperance, lives not in fear: [Yet
better . . . fear: It's better
that people scorn me openly than scorn me behind my back while
flattering me in their presence. I may be the worst, the lowest,
and
the most dejected person in the world, but I still have hope
(esperance, line 6) and
do not live in fear.]
The lamentable change is from the best;
The worst returns to laughter. Welcome, then, [The
lamentable . . . laughter: The
worst kind of change is to go from being held in highest esteem to
being held in lowest esteem—or from being the happiest mortal to
the
unhappiest. But when you reach your lowest ebb, laughter buoys
you.]
Thou unsubstantial air that I embrace:
The wretch that thou hast blown unto the worst
10
Owes nothing to thy blasts. But who comes here? [The
wretch . . . blasts: I no longer
fear the stormy air that has blown me down to my present state,
for I
am as low as I can go.]
Enter GLOUCESTER, led by an old man.
My father, poorly led? World, world, O world!
But that thy strange mutations make us hate
thee,
Life would not yield to age.
15[But
that . . . age: If life did not afflict us with infirmities
as the years pass, we would live on with fire and zest.]
OLD MAN: O my good lord!
I have been your tenant [tenant farmer, who rents land], and your father’s
tenant,
These fourscore [eighty] years.
GLOUCESTER: Away, get thee away; good friend, be
gone;
Thy comforts [your kindness] can do me no good at all;
20
Thee they may hurt.
OLD MAN: You cannot see your way.
GLOUCESTER: I have no way, and therefore want no
eyes;
I stumbled when I saw. Full oft ’tis seen,
Our means secure us, and our mere defects
25
Prove our commodities. Ah! dear son Edgar. [Full
oft . . . commodities:
Frequently it has been observed that having all our
faculties—healthy
and unmarred—makes us feel safe. However, it has also been
observed
that having physical defects, such as my blindness, can awaken new
powers in us.]
The food of thy abused father’s wrath;
Might I but live to see thee in my touch,
I’d say I had eyes again. [The
food . . . again: I regret my
false accusations against my son Edgar. If I could live long
enough to
see him in the touch of my hands, I would say I have eyes again.]
OLD MAN: How now!
Who’s there?
30
EDGAR: [Aside.] O gods! Who is ’t can say, ‘I am at
the worst?’
I am worse than e’er I was.
OLD MAN: ’Tis poor mad Tom.
EDGAR: [Aside.] And worse I may be yet; the worst is
not,
So long as we can say, ‘This is the worst.’
35[And
worse . . . 'This is the worst':
So long as we have the wits to recognize our dire plight, which
seems
worse than ever before, things could actually be worse.]
OLD MAN: Fellow, where goest?
GLOUCESTER: Is it a beggar-man?
OLD MAN: Madman and beggar too.
GLOUCESTER: He has some reason, else he could not
beg.
I’ the last night’s storm I such a fellow saw,
40
Which made me think a man a worm: my son
Came then into my mind; and yet my mind
Was then scarce friends with him: I have heard more
since.
As flies to wanton boys, are we to the gods;
They kill us for their sport.
45[As
flies . . . sport: To the gods, we are like flies that boys swat
for sport.]
EDGAR: [Aside.] How should this be?
Bad is the trade that must play fool to sorrow,
Angering itself and others.—[To GLOUCESTER.] Bless thee,
master! [How
should . . . master: What's
happening? What should I do? I don't like the idea of pretending
to be
a foolish beggar to a sorrowful man.]
GLOUCESTER: Is that the naked fellow?
OLD MAN: Ay, my
lord.
50
GLOUCESTER: Then, prithee, get thee gone. If, for my
sake,
Thou wilt o’ertake us, hence a mile or twain,
I’ the way toward Dover, do it for ancient love;
And bring some covering for this naked soul
Who I’ll entreat to lead me.
55[Then,
prithee . . . lead me: Then run
off and get some proper clothing for this poor wretch, whom I'll
ask to
lead me to Dover.You can meet up with us a mile or two from here.]
OLD MAN: Alack [alas], sir! he is
mad.
GLOUCESTER: ’Tis the times’ plague, when madmen lead the
blind.
Do as I bid thee, or rather do thy pleasure;
Above the rest, be gone. ['Tis
the . . . gone: It's typical of
the times we live in—that madmen lead the blind. Now do what I
ask.
Or, if you wish, go off and do what pleases you. In either case,
be
off.]
OLD MAN: I’ll bring him the best ’parel [apparel] that I
have,
60
Come on ’t what will [whatever happens, good or ill].
[Exit.
GLOUCESTER: Sirrah, naked fellow,—
EDGAR: Poor Tom’s a-cold. [Aside.] I cannot daub
[fake]
it further.
GLOUCESTER: Come hither, fellow.
EDGAR: [Aside.] And yet I must. Bless thy sweet eyes,
they bleed.
65
GLOUCESTER: Know’st thou the way to Dover?
EDGAR: Both stile and gate, horse-way and foot-path [I know
every landmark, road, and footpath]. Poor
Tom hath been scared out of his good wits: bless thee, good man’s
son,
from the foul fiend [Satan]! Five fiends [devils] have been in [have
possessed] poor
Tom at once; of
lust, as Obidicut; Hobbididance, prince of dumbness; Mahu, of
stealing;
Modo, of murder; and Flibbertigibbet, of mopping and mowing [mocking;
making faces];
who since
possesses chambermaids and waiting-women. So, bless thee,
master!
GLOUCESTER: Here, take this purse, thou whom the heavens’
plagues
Have humbled to all strokes: that I am wretched
Makes thee the happier: heavens, deal so still!
70[Here,
take . . . so still: Here, take
the money in this purse, you who have been humbled beyond measure
by
the heavens. You are happier because I am wretched. I hope the
heavens
continue to deal out justice in that way.]
Let the superfluous and lust-dieted man,
That slaves your ordinance, that will not see
Because he doth not feel, feel your power
quickly;
So distribution should undo excess,
And each man have enough. Dost thou know Dover?
75[Let
the . . . enough: Let the man who
has an overabundance of wealth and who lusts after women—a man who
treats your directions or commands with disdain and who does not
see
the suffering around him because he does not feel it—experience
the
pain of corrective measures so that he may share his wealth with
the
less fortunate.]
EDGAR: Ay, master.
GLOUCESTER: There is a cliff, whose high and bending
head
Looks fearfully in the confined deep;
Bring me but to the very brim [edge] of it,
And I’ll repair the misery thou dost bear [I'll
reward you]
80
With something rich about me; from that place
I shall no leading need.
EDGAR: Give me thy arm:
Poor Tom shall lead thee. [Exeunt. [Exeunt:
Everyone leaves the stage.]

Act
4, Scene 2

Before the DUKE OF
ALBANY’S palace.
Enter GONERIL and EDMUND.
GONERIL: Welcome, my lord; I marvel our mild
husband
Not met us on the way. [Enter OSWALD.] Now, where’s
your master?
OSWALD: Madam, within; but never man so
chang’d.
5
I told him of the [French] army that was
landed;
He smil’d at it: I told him you were coming;
His answer was, ‘The worse’ [she'll make things worse]. Of
Gloucester’s treachery,
And of the loyal service of his son,
When I inform’d him, then he call’d me sot,
10
And told me I had turn’d the wrong side out:
What most he should dislike seems pleasant to
him;
What like, offensive. [Of
Gloucester's . . . offensive: After I informed him of Gloucester's
treachery and the loyal service of Edmund, he called me a drunkard
and
said I had things all wrong. What he should scorn seems pleasant
to him. What he should like offends him.]
GONERIL: [To EDMUND.] Then, shall you go no
further.
It is the cowish terror of his spirit
15
That dares not undertake; he’ll not feel wrongs
Which tie him to an answer. Our wishes on the
way
May prove effects. Back, Edmund, to my brother;[Then,
shall . . . brother: Then stop
here, Edmund. Don't go in. My husband is a coward who refuses to
undertake risk. He thinks no one can condemn him for something
he didn't do. On our way here, we talked about things we could do
that would be to our credit. What I want you to do now, Edmund,
is to go back to my brother-in-law, Cornwall.]
Hasten his musters and conduct his powers:
I must change arms at home, and give the distaff
20
Into my husband’s [Albany's] hands. This trusty
servant
Shall pass between us; ere long you are like to
hear,
If you dare venture in your own behalf,
A mistress’s command. Wear this; spare speech; [Giving a
favour.
Decline your head: this kiss, if it durst speak,
25
Would stretch thy spirits up into the air.
Conceive, and fare thee well.[Hasten
. . . thee well: Assemble his
soldiers. Meanwhile, I'll change duties at home with my husband.
He'll
manage the women's chores, and I'll do the men's. This trusted
servant
(Oswald) will carry messages between us. Before long, if you are
ready
to serve me on your own behalf, you will receive orders from me.
Wear
this token as a symbol of our relationship. Don't speak. Instead,
lower
your head for a kiss. If this kiss could speak, it would elevate
your
spirits into the air. Think about what I say, and farewell.]
EDMUND: Yours in the ranks of death. [I will
serve you even if it means I must sacrifice my life.]
GONERIL: My most dear Gloucester! [Exit EDMUND. [Gloucester:
Goneril refers to Edmund
as Gloucester, as if Edmund's father has already died and Edmund
has
inherited his father's title and property.]
O! the difference of man and man!
30
To thee a woman’s services are due:
My fool usurps my bed. [O!
the . . . bed: O, the difference
between you, Edmund—a real man—and my husband, Albany. You deserve
my
love and attention. Right now, a fool occupies my bed.]OSWALD: Madam,
here comes my lord. [Exit.
Enter ALBANY.
GONERIL: I have been worth the whistle. [I see
that you at long last are paying attention to me.]
35
ALBANY: O Gonerill
You are not worth the dust which the rude wind
Blows in your face. I fear your disposition:
That nature, which contemns its origin,
Cannot be border’d certain in itself;
40
She that herself will sliver and disbranch
From her material sap, perforce must wither
And come to deadly use. [That
nature . . . itself: That person
who rejects his or her family origin cannot be trusted. She who
will
cut off the branch connecting her to her family tree will, like
the
branch, wither and die.]
GONERIL: No more; the text is foolish. [Say no
more. Your words are foolish.]
ALBANY: Wisdom and goodness to the vile seem
vile;
45
Filths savour but themselves. [Vile people appreciate only
themselves.]
What have you done?
Tigers, not daughters, what have you perform’d? [Tigers
. . . perform'd: You and Regan are tigers, not daughters. What
have you done?]
A father, and a gracious aged man,
Whose reverence the head-lugg’d bear would lick,
Most barbarous, most degenerate! have you
madded.
50[A
father . . . madded: You have
driven mad a father, a gracious old man, whose hand even an ornery
bear
would lick. You are barbarous and degenerate!]
Could my good brother suffer you to do it?
A man, a prince, by him so benefited! [Could
. . . . benefited: Could my
good brother-in-law, Cornwall—who has benefited from the king's
generosity—have allowed you to treat Lear as you have?]
If that the heavens do not their visible spirits
Send quickly down to tame these vile offences,
It will come,
55
Humanity must perforce prey on itself,
Like monsters of the deep. [If
that . . . deep: If the
heavens do not immediately send down their wrath on you, it will
come
eventually. Humans who prey on other humans are evil; they are
like
monsters from the ocean depths.]
GONERIL: Milk-liver’d man!
That bear’st a cheek for blows, a head for
wrongs;
Who hast not in thy brows an eye discerning
60
Thine honour from thy suffering; that not
know’st
Fools do those villains pity who are punish’d
Ere they have done their mischief. Where’s thy
drum?
France spreads his banners in our noiseless
land,
With plumed helm thy slayer begins threats,
65
Whilst thou, a moral fool, sitt’st still, and
criest
‘Alack! why does he so?’ [Milk-liver'd
. . . does he so:
Coward! While you turn the other cheek, you fail to
see the difference between receiving honor and receiving
backhanded
blows. Only fools pity villains who are punished before they
commit
their crimes. Why aren't you beating your war drum against France?
Even
now, French armies are flying their banners in England. Wearing
plumed
helmets, the French soldiers threaten you. Meanwhile, you simply
sit
there and wonder why the French have come to England.]
ALBANY: See thyself, devil!
Proper deformity seems not in the fiend
So horrid as in woman.
70[See
. . . woman: Look at yourself, devil! Evil in a woman seems more
horrifying than evil in a demon from hell.]
GONERIL: O vain fool!
ALBANY: Thou changed and self-cover’d thing, for
shame,
Be-monster not thy feature. Were ’t my fitness [Thou
changed . . . feature: How shameful it is that you have turned
yourself into a beast, making your features monstrous.]
To let these hands obey my blood,
They are apt enough to dislocate and tear
75
Thy flesh and bones; howe’er thou art a fiend,
A woman’s shape doth shield thee.
GONERIL: Marry, your manhood.—Mew! [Marry
. . . Mew: By the Virgin Mary, cast off your useless manhood.]
Enter a messenger.
ALBANY: What news?
80
MESSENGER: O! my good lord, the Duke of Cornwall’s
dead;
Slain by his servant, going to put out
The other eye of Gloucester.
ALBANY: Gloucester’s eyes!
MESSENGER: A servant that he bred, thrill’d with
remorse [filled with sympathy for Gloucester],
85
Oppos’d against the act, bending his sword
To his great master [Cornwall]; who, thereat
enrag’d,
Flew on him, and amongst them fell’d him dead; [Flew
. . . dead: Attacked and killed the servant]
But not without that harmful stroke, which since
Hath pluck’d him after.
90[But
not . . . after: But not without suffering a harmful stroke from
the servant's sword. Cornwall later died.]
ALBANY: This shows you are above,
You justicers, that these our nether crimes
So speedily can venge! But, O poor Gloucester! [This
shows . . . venge: His death
shows that the heavens above rain down their just punishment for
the
crimes we commit in this lower world.]
Lost he his other eye?
MESSENGER: Both, both, my
lord.
95
This letter, madam, craves a speedy answer;
’Tis from your sister.
GONERIL: [Aside.] One way I like this
well;
But [Regan]
being widow, and my Gloucester [Edmund] with her,
May all the building in my fancy pluck
100
Upon my hateful life: another way,
This news is not so tart. [To messenger.] I’ll read
and answer. [Exit. [One
way . . . tart (Spoken to
herself): In one respect, I like the fact that Cornwall is dead.
But I
don't like the idea that Regan, now a widow, is with Edmund. If
they
are attracted to each other, I can forget about building a new
life
with Edmund. In another respect, this news is not so bad.]
ALBANY: Where was his son [Edmund] when they did take his
eyes?
MESSENGER: Come with my lady hither. [He was
coming here with Regan.]
ALBANY: He is not
here.
105
MESSENGER: No, my good lord; I met him back
again.
ALBANY: Knows he the wickedness? [Does he
know about the wickedness committed against old Gloucester, his
father?]
MESSENGER: Ay, my good lord; ’twas he inform’d against him,
[it was Edmund who informed against his own father,]
And quit [left] the house on purpose that their
punishment
Might have the freer course.
110
ALBANY: Gloucester [old Gloucester], I live
To thank thee for the love thou show’dst the
king,
And to revenge thine eyes. Come hither, friend:
Tell me what more thou knowest. [Exeunt. [Exeunt:
Everyone leaves the stage.]

Act
4, Scene 3

The French camp, near
Dover.
Enter KENT and a gentleman.

KENT: Why the King of France is so suddenly gone back know
you the reason?
GENTLEMAN: Something he left imperfect in the state, which
since his
coming forth is thought of; which imports to the kingdom so much
fear
and danger, that his personal return was most required and
necessary. [Something
. . . necessary: He
remembered unfinished business in France, business so important
that he
had to return to his country.]
KENT: Who hath he left behind him general?
5
GENTLEMAN: The Marshal of France, Monsieur la
Far.
KENT: Did your letters pierce the queen to any demonstration
of grief? [Did
. . . grief: Did your letters to Queen Cordelia about developments
in England cause her to grieve?]
GENTLEMAN: Ay, sir; she took them, read them in my
presence;
And now and then an ample tear trill’d [trickled] down
Her delicate cheek; it seem’d she was a queen
10
Over her passion; who, most rebel-like,
Sought to be king o’er her. [it
seem'd . . . o'er her: It seemed she had control over her
emotions, which—like rebels—tried to dominate her.]
KENT: O! then it [the news in the letter] mov’d
her.
GENTLEMAN: Not to a rage; patience and sorrow
strove
Who should express her goodliest. You have seen
15
Sunshine and rain at once; her smiles and tears
Were like a better way; those happy smilets [Not
a rage . . . smilets: She was not in a rage. Patience vied with
sorrow in her heart over which would reveal
her best intentions. She was like a sunshower, but her smiles and
tears were more beautiful. Those happy little smiles]
That play’d on her ripe lip seem’d not to know
What guests were in her eyes; which parted
thence,
As pearls from diamonds dropp’d. In brief,
20[What
guests . . . dropp'd: That tears were in her eyes, tears that fell
like pearls from diamonds.]
Sorrow would be a rarity most belov’d,
If all could so become it.
KENT: Made she no verbal question?
GENTLEMAN: Faith, once or twice she heav’d the name of
‘father’
Pantingly forth, as if it press’d her heart;
25
Cried, ‘Sisters! sisters! Shame of ladies!
sisters!
Kent! father! sisters! What, i’ the storm? i’ the
night?
Let pity not be believed!’ ["This news is hard to believe."] There
she shook
The holy water from her heavenly eyes,
And clamour-moisten’d, then away she started
30[clamour-moisten'd:
Loud cries of sorrow brought on the tears that moistened
Cordelia's cheeks.]
To deal with grief alone.
KENT: It is the stars,
The stars above us, govern our conditions;
Else one self mate and mate could not beget
Such different issues. You spoke not with her
since?
35[The
stars . . . issues: The stars
above—fate—govern what happens on earth. What other way can we
explain how a mother and father produced such different
children—two
that are devils and one that is a saint.]
GENTLEMAN: No.
KENT: Was this before the king return’d? [before
the French king returned home to conduct urgent business]
GENTLEMAN: No, since.
KENT: Well, sir, the poor distress’d Lear’s i’ the
town,
Who sometime, in his better tune, remembers
40
What we are come about, and by no means
Will yield to see his daughter. [Well
. . . daughter: Well, sir, poor
King Lear is in Dover. Sometimes, when he regains his senses, he
remembers why he traveled here. However, he has so far refused to
see
Cordelia.]
GENTLEMAN: Why, good sir?
KENT: A sovereign [powerful; overwhelming] shame so elbows [overcomes] him: his own
unkindness,
That stripp’d her from his benediction [favor], turn’d [banished] her
45
To foreign casualties [uncertain life in foreign lands], gave her dear
rights
To his dog-hearted daughters,—these things sting
His mind so venomously that burning shame
Detains him from Cordelia.
GENTLEMAN: Alack [alas]! poor
gentleman.
50
KENT: Of Albany’s and Cornwall’s powers [forces;
armies] you
heard not?
GENTLEMAN: ’Tis so, they are afoot.
KENT: Well, sir, I’ll bring you to our master
Lear,
And leave you to attend him. Some dear cause
Will in concealment [in my disguise] wrap me up
awhile;
55
When I am known aright [when I reveal my true identity], you shall not
grieve
Lending me this acquaintance. I pray you, go
Along with me. [Exeunt. [Exeunt:
Everyone leaves the stage.]

Act
4, Scene 4

The French camp, near
Dover.
Enter with drum and colours [flag],
CORDELIA, physician, and soldiers.
CORDELIA: Alack [alas]! ’tis he [Lear]: why, he was met even
now
As mad as the vex’d sea; singing aloud;
Crown’d with rank fumiter and furrow weeds,
5
With burdocks, hemlock, nettles, cuckoo-flowers,
Darnel, and all the idle weeds that grow[fumiter
. . . Darnel: Types of weeds]
In our sustaining corn. A century [one
hundred soldiers] send forth;
Search every acre in the high-grown field,
And bring him to our eye. [Exit an
officer.
10
What can man’s wisdom
In the restoring his bereaved sense? [What
can . . . sense: Is there any man with enough knowledge to restore
his sanity?]
He that helps him take all my outward worth.
PHYSICIAN: There is means, madam;
Our foster-nurse of nature is repose [sleep;
rest],
15
The which he lacks; that to provoke in him,
Are many simples operative, whose power
Will close the eye of anguish. [that
to . . . anguish: There are many herbal preparations available
that will put him to sleep.]
CORDELIA: All bless’d secrets,
All you unpublish’d virtues of the earth,
20
Spring with my tears! be aidant and remediate
In the good man’s distress! Seek, seek for him,
Lest his ungovern’d rage dissolve the life
That wants the means to lead it. [All
bless'd . . . lead it: All of you
blessed secrets of the earth—you herbs with virtues not widely
known—let me rain my tears on you to spring you to life. Aid and
cure
my father in his distress. Physician, go get those herbs that will
relieve my father's ungoverned rage before it kills him.]
Enter a messenger.
25

MESSENGER: News, madam;
The British powers [troops] are marching hitherward [here].
CORDELIA: ’Tis known before [we have
already been informed of approach]; our preparation stands
In expectation of them. O dear father!
It is thy business that I go about; [I am
acting on behalf of your welfare]
30
Therefore great France
My mourning and important tears hath pitied,
No blown ambition doth our arms incite,
But love, dear love, and our ag’d father’s
right, [Therefore
. . . father's right:
Because of my tears and pity for my father, the great King of
France,
my husband, ordered his armies to England. He does not want to
conquer
England; he simply wants to help my poor, aged father.]
Soon may I hear and see him! [Exeunt.
35[Exeunt: Everyone leaves the stage.]

Act 4, Scene 5

A room in Gloucester's
castle.
Enter REGAN and OSWALD.

REGAN: But are my brother’s powers [brother-in-law's
troops] set
forth?
OSWALD: Ay, madam.
REGAN: Himself [Albany] in person
there?
5
OSWALD: Madam, with much ado:
Your sister is the better soldier.
REGAN: Lord Edmund spake not with your lord [Albany] at home?
OSWALD: No, madam.
REGAN: What might import [what says] my sister’s letter to
him?
10
OSWALD: I know not, lady.
REGAN: Faith, he is posted hence on serious
matter.
It was great ignorance [stupid], Gloucester’s [old
Gloucester's]
eyes being out,
To let him live; where he arrives he moves
All hearts against us. Edmund, I think, is gone,
15
In pity of his [old Gloucester's] misery, to dispatch [end]
His nighted [blind] life; moreover, to descry [reconnoiter;
find out]
The strength o’ the enemy.
OSWALD: I must needs [I need to go] after him, madam, with my
letter.
REGAN: Our troops set forth to-morrow; stay with
us,
20
The ways are dangerous.
OSWALD: I may not, madam;
My lady charg’d my duty in this business.
REGAN: Why should she write to Edmund? Might not
you
Transport her purposes by word? Belike [certainly;
probably; likely],
25
Something—I know not what. I’ll love thee much,
Let me unseal the letter.
OSWALD: Madam, I had rather—
REGAN: I know your lady does not love her
husband;
I am sure of that: and at her late being here
30
She gave strange oeilliades [amorous glances] and most speaking
looks
To noble Edmund. I know you are of her bosom. [I know
your are loyal to her and serve as a confidant.]
OSWALD: I, madam! [You think I am that close to her?]
REGAN: I speak in understanding; you are, I know
’t:
Therefore I do advise you, take this note:
35
My lord is dead; Edmund and I have talk’d,
And more convenient is he for my hand.
Than for your lady’s. You may gather more. [And
more . . . gather more: It's
better that Edmund marry me than marry Goneril. Think about it,
and
you'll reach the same conclusion.]
If you do find him, pray you, give him this [give him
this expression (perhaps a note, keepsake, or charm) of my
affection for him]
And when your mistress hears thus much [hears
about my feelings and intentions] from you,
40
I pray desire her call her wisdom to her: [I
pray . . . to her: Please ask her to be reasonable.]
So, fare you well.
If you do chance to hear of that blind traitor,
Preferment falls on him that cuts him off [on
anyone who murders him].
OSWALD: Would I could meet him, madam: I would
show
45
What party I do follow [where my loyalties lie].
REGAN: Fare thee well. [Exeunt. [Exeunt:
Everyone leaves the stage.]

Act
4, Scene 6

The country near Dover.
Enter GLOUCESTER and EDGAR, dressed like a peasant.

GLOUCESTER: When shall I come to the top of that same hill?
[top of the cliff?]
EDGAR: You do climb up it now; look how we
labour.
GLOUCESTER: Methinks the ground is even [level].
5
EDGAR: Horrible steep:
Hark! do you hear the sea?
GLOUCESTER: No, truly.
EDGAR: Why, then your other senses grow
imperfect
By your eyes' anguish.
10
GLOUCESTER: So may it be, indeed.
Methinks thy voice is alter’d, and thou speak’st
In better phrase and matter than thou didst.
EDGAR: Y’are much deceiv’d; in nothing am I
chang’d
But in my garments.
15
GLOUCESTER: Methinks you’re better spoken.
EDGAR: Come on, sir; here’s the place: stand
still.
How fearful
And dizzy ’tis to cast one’s eyes so low [cast
one's eyes upon the sea far below]!
The crows and choughs [crow-like birds] that wing the midway
air
20
Show scarce so gross as beetles [look smaller than beetles
from here];
half way down
Hangs one that gathers samphire [plant with tiny flowers; it
grows along a seacoast], dreadful trade!
Methinks he seems no bigger than his head.
The fishermen that walk upon the beach
Appear like mice, and yond tall anchoring bark [ship]
25
Diminish’d to her cock [diminished to a small boat or
lifeboat], her
cock a buoy [floating object]
Almost too small for sight. The murmuring surge,
That on the unnumber’d idle pebbles chafes [rages;
causes friction; rubs],
Cannot be heard so high. I’ll look no more,
Lest my brain turn, and the deficient sight
30
Topple down headlong. [Lest
. . . headlong: Lest my brain go haywire, impairing my vision and
causing me to topple headlong off the cliff]
GLOUCESTER: Set me where you stand.
EDGAR: Give me your hand; you are now within a
foot
Of the extreme verge [edge]: for all beneath the moon
Would I not leap upright.
35[for
all . . . upright: If you gave me everything on earth, I would not
move a muscle.]
GLOUCESTER: Let go my hand.
Here, friend, ’s [is] another purse; in it a
jewel
Well worth a poor man’s taking: fairies and gods
Prosper it with thee! Go thou further off;
Bid me farewell, and let me hear thee going.
40
EDGAR: Now fare you well, good sir.
GLOUCESTER: With all my heart.
EDGAR: Why I do trifle thus with his
despair
Is done to cure it. [Why
I . . . cure it (spoken to himself): I trifle with this old man
because I want to cure him of his suicidal despair.]
GLOUCESTER: O you mighty
gods!
45
This world I do renounce, and, in your sights,
Shake patiently my great affliction off;[This
world . . . off: I hereby renounce the world and, with what I am
about to do, rid myself of my mental and physical pain.]
If I could bear it longer, and not fall
To quarrel with your great opposeless wills,
My snuff [candle wick of life] and loathed part of nature
[wrinkled old body] should
50
Burn itself out. If Edgar live, O, bless him!
Now, fellow, fare thee well. [He falls
forward.
EDGAR: Gone, sir: farewell.
[Aside.] And yet I know not how conceit may
rob
The treasury of life when life itself
55
Yields to the theft; had he been where he
thought
By this had thought been past. Alive or dead? [And
yet . . . dead: Edgar tricked
Gloucester into believing that he was standing on the edge of a
cliff.
In fact, he was standing on the edge of an embankment a few feet
above
the ground. However, Edgar now worries that Gloucester's
imagination (conceit,
line 54) made him think he did fall a great distance and suffer
mortal injuries. He wonders whether Gloucester is
alive or dead.]
[To GLOUCESTER.] Ho, you sir! friend! Hear you, sir?
speak!
Thus might he pass indeed [maybe he did die]; yet he revives [but he's
alive and recovering].
What are you, sir?
60
GLOUCESTER: Away and let me die.
EDGAR: Hadst thou been aught but gossamer, feathers,
air,
So many fathom down precipitating,
Thou’dst shiver’d like an egg; but thou dost
breathe,
Hast heavy substance, bleed’st not, speak’st, art
sound.
65[Hadst
thou . . . sound: Even if you
had been a spider web, a feather, or simply air, you would have
cracked
like an egg after falling such a distance. But you breathe, have a
body
intact, do not bleed, and speak. You are in sound health.]
Ten masts at each make not the altitude
Which thou hast perpendicularly fell: [Ten
masts . . . fell: The length of ten ship masts laid end to end
does not equal the height you fell.]
Thy life’s a miracle. Speak yet again.
GLOUCESTER: But have I fallen or no?
EDGAR: From the dread summit of this chalky bourn [cliff;
boundary between land and a precipice].
70
Look up a-height; the shrill-gorg’d lark so far [lark
making a high-pitched sound]
Cannot be seen or heard: do but look up.
GLOUCESTER: Alack [alas]! I have no
eyes.
Is wretchedness depriv’d that benefit
To end itself by death? ’Twas yet some comfort,
75When misery could beguile
the tyrant’s rage,
And frustrate his proud will. [Is
wretchedness . . . death: Is a
wretch like me deprived of the right to kill himself? It was a
comfort
to me when I thought I could overcome my misery by ending my
life.]
EDGAR: Give me your arm:
Up: so. How is ’t? Feel you your legs? You
stand.
GLOUCESTER: Too well, too well.
80
EDGAR: This is above all strangeness.
Upon the crown o’ the cliff, what thing was that
Which parted from you? [Upon
. . . from you: Who was that who walked away from you at the top
of the cliff?]
GLOUCESTER: A poor unfortunate beggar.
EDGAR: As I stood here below methought his
eyes
85
Were two full moons; he had a thousand noses,
Horns whelk’d and wav’d like the enridged
sea: [Horns
. . . sea: Had horns resembling those of a sea snail. On the snail
shell were ridges that reminded me of ocean waves.]
It was some fiend [devil]; therefore, thou happy
father,
Think that the clearest gods, who make them
honours
Of men’s impossibilities, have preserv’d thee.
90[therefore
. . . thee: Therefore, it
seems to me that the gods think you have great possibilities and,
for
that reason, decided to save your life.]
GLOUCESTER: I do remember now; henceforth [from now
on] I’ll
bear
Affliction till it do cry out itself
‘Enough, enough,’ and die. That thing you speak
of
I took it for a man; often ’twould say
‘The fiend, the fiend:’ he led me to that place.
95
EDGAR: Bear free and patient thoughts. But who comes
here?
Enter LEAR, fantastically dressed with flowers.
The safer sense will ne’er accommodate
His master thus. [The
safer . . . thus: A sensible man would never dress himself that
way.]
LEAR: No, they cannot touch me for coining [making
fake coins];
100
I am the king himself.
EDGAR: O thou side-piercing sight! [O .
. . sight: Edgar expresses pity
for Lear. It is possible that he is comparing Lear to Christ. On
the
cross, Christ was pierced in the side with a spear.]
LEAR: Nature’s above art in that respect. There’s your
press-money. That fellow handles his bow like a crow-keeper: draw
me a
clothier’s yard. Look, look! a mouse. Peace, peace! This piece of
toasted cheese will do ’t. There’s my gauntlet; I’ll prove it on a
giant. Bring
up the brown bills. O! well flown, bird; i’ the clout, i’
the clout: hewgh! Give the word. [Nature's
. . . give the word: Nature is superior to art in inflicting
injury, including a side-piercing
one. Here, soldier, is your money for being pressed into military
service. Did you notice how that fellow handles a bow? He must be
an
amateur. Draw the bowstring back a yard, as measured by a maker
and
seller of clothing. Look, a mouse. But don't get excited. This
piece of
toasted cheese will attract and trap him. Now, then, I'm throwing
down
my gauntlet to announce my willingness to fight a giant. (A
gauntlet
was a glove usually overlaid with metal for protection in battle.
Throwing down a gauntlet was a sign
that one man challenged another man to a fight.) Bring forward
the infantrymen carrying brown bills (halberds, weapons consisting
of a
spear-like shaft topped with an ax and a spike). O! There's a
well-shot arrow. It struck its target. Tell me what the password
is.]
EDGAR: Sweet marjoram.
LEAR: Pass. [That's right. You may pass.]
105
GLOUCESTER: I know that voice.
LEAR: Ha! Goneril, with a white beard! Ha, Regan? They
flatter’d me
like a dog, and told me I had white hairs in my beard ere [before] the black
ones were there. [They told me my white hairs
signified wisdom.] To say ‘ay’ and ‘no’ to everything I said! ‘Ay’ and
‘no’ too was no good divinity. [They said yes or no to
everything I said, but those were dishonest answers.] When the rain came to
wet me once and
the wind to make me chatter, when the thunder would not peace [cease] at my
bidding, there I found ’em [there I discovered their evil
natures], there
I smelt ’em out [there I smelled out their
trickery]. Go
to, they are not
men o’ their words: they told me I was everything; ’tis a lie, I
am
not ague-proof
[fever-proof].
GLOUCESTER: The trick of that voice I do well
remember:
Is ’t not the king?
LEAR: Ay, every inch a
king:
110
When I do stare, see how the subject quakes. [When
. . . quakes: When I stare at a subject, he shakes in fear.]
I pardon that man’s life. What was thy cause?
Adultery?
Thou shalt not die: die for adultery! No:
The wren goes to ’t, and the small gilded fly
115
Does lecher in my sight.
Let copulation [sexual relations] thrive; for Gloucester’s
bastard son
Was kinder to his father than my daughters
Got ’tween the lawful sheets. [Got
. . . sheets: Who were conceived in a lawful marriage bed] To ’t luxury,
pell-mell! [So go to it, you lustful ones, full speed
ahead.] For I
lack soldiers.
120
Behold yound [yonder] simpering dame,
Whose face between her forks [legs] presageth [forecasts;
indicates]
snow;
That minces virtue, and does shake the head
To hear of pleasure’s name; [Whose
face . . . name: Lear says the
woman's face pretends to reflect a cold or deadened sexual drive
"between her forks," or legs. Because she wants to appear
virtuous, she
shakes a no with her head to sexual pleasure.]
The fitchew nor the soiled horse goes to ’t
125
With a more riotous appetite.
Down from the waist they are Centaurs,
Though women all above: [The
fitchew . . . above: But no
animals, such as the polecat (fitchew,
line 125) and the horse, engage in sexual
relations with a greater appetite than that woman does. Below
their
waist, such women are lustful. Above their waist, they are
virtuous.]
But to the girdle do the gods inherit,
Beneath is all the fiends’:
130There’s hell, there’s
darkness, there is the sulphurous pit,
Burning, scalding, stench, consumption; fie, fie, fie! pah, pah!
Give
me an ounce of civet, good apothecary, to sweeten my imagination:
there’s money for thee. [But
to . . . for thee: But we inherit
virtue only in the upper part of the body, above the waist. Below
the
waist are deviltry and sin. Down there are hell, darkness, and a
smoky
pit. Burning, scalding, stench, consumption of the body are
among
the horrors of hell. Give me some perfume or love potion, good
druggist, to sweeten my dreams. There's your payment.]
GLOUCESTER: O! let me kiss that hand!
LEAR: Let me wipe it first; it smells of
mortality.
GLOUCESTER: O ruin’d piece of nature! This great
world
135
Shall so [likewise] wear out to nought [nothing; ruin]. Dost thou know
me?
LEAR: I remember thine eyes well enough. Dost thou
squiny at me? [Do you look at me like a
prostitute who wants to seduce me?] No, do thy worst, blind
Cupid; I’ll not love. Read thou this
challenge [letter]; mark but the penning [handwriting] of it.
GLOUCESTER: Were all the letters suns, I could not
see.
EDGAR: [Aside.] I would not take this from report; it
is,
And my heart breaks at it.
140[I
would . . . at it: I would not
believe what I'm seeing if I had not witnessed it myself. But what
I am
seeing is really taking place, and my heart is breaking.]
LEAR: Read.
GLOUCESTER: What! with the case [sockets] of eyes?
LEAR: O, ho! are you there with me? No eyes in your head,
nor no money in your purse? Your eyes are in a heavy case, your
purse
in a light: yet you see how this world goes. [Lear is
suggesting that Gloucester wants to be paid to read the letter.]
GLOUCESTER: I see it feelingly. [I see it
with my emotions and sense of touch.]
LEAR: What! art mad? A man may see how this world goes
with no eyes. Look with thine ears: see how yond [yonder] justice rails upon yon
simple thief. Hark, in thine ear: change places; and, handy-dandy,
which is the justice, which is the thief? Thou hast seen a
farmer’s dog
bark at a beggar?
145[see
how yond . . . beggar: Listen to how a
judge scolds a simple thief. If the judge changes places with the
thief, could you tell them apart? Have you ever seen a farmer's
dog
bark at a beggar?]
GLOUCESTER: Ay, sir.
LEAR: And the creature [beggar] run from the cur [dog]? There thou
mightst behold the great image of authority; a dog’s obey’d in
office [people obey a dog when it asserts its authority].
Thou rascal beadle, hold thy bloody hand!
Why dost thou lash that whore? Strip thine own
back;
Thou hotly lust’st to use her in that kind
150
For which thou whipp’st her. The usurer hangs the cozener. [Thou
rascal . . . cozener: You
supposed man of the church [beadle,
line 148], stop lashing that whore. You yourself
should be whipped for punishing her for the same offense that you
commit. The greedy moneylender hangs the swindler—that is, one
unprincipled man punishes another unprincipled man.]
Through tatter’d clothes small vices do appear;
Robes and furr’d gowns hide all. Plate sin with
gold,
And the strong lance of justice hurtless breaks;
[Through
tatter'd . . . hurtless
breaks: It's easy to see the vices of a poor man through the
openings
in his ragged clothes. What I'm saying is that a poor man lacks
the
wealth and power to hide his wrongdoing. On the other hand, those
who
wear robes and furred gowns have the wherewithal to hide their
faults.
If you cover sin with gold, justice thinks the sin is virtue.]
Arm it in rags, a pigmy’s straw doth pierce it.
155[Arm
it . . . pierce it: But if you dress sin in ragged clothes, a mere
straw can pierce the clothes.]
None does offend, none, I say none; I’ll able ’em [I'll
attest to that fact]:
Take that of me, my friend, who have the power
To seal the accuser’s lips. Get thee glass eyes;
And, like a scurvy politician, seem
To see the things thou dost not. Now, now, now,
now;
160
Pull off my boots; harder, harder; so.
EDGAR: [Aside.] O! matter and impertinency
mix’d;
Reason in madness! [O!
matter . . . madness (speaking to himself): O! His words mix wise
and silly sayings. He has wisdom in his madness!]
LEAR: If thou wilt weep my fortunes, take my
eyes;
I know thee well enough; thy name is Gloucester:
165
Thou must be patient; we came crying hither:
Thou know’st the first time that we smell the air [You know
that when we are born]
We waul [wail] and cry. I will preach to thee: mark.
GLOUCESTER: Alack! [alas!] alack the
day!
LEAR: When we are born, we cry that we are
come
170
To this great stage of fools [to this earth, which is
nothing but a great stage of fools]. This a good
block!
It were a delicate stratagem to shoe
A troop of horse with felt; I’ll put it in
proof,
And when I have stol’n upon these sons-in-law,
Then, kill, kill, kill, kill, kill, kill!
175[This
a good . . . kill: That's a good
hat. Why not cover horseshoes with felt? I'll put this idea to the
test. And after I mount my horse, I'll clip-clop silently to my
sons-in-law, then kill them!]
Enter gentleman, with attendants.
GENTLEMAN: O! here he is; lay hand upon him [restrain
him].
Sir,
Your most dear daughter—
LEAR: No rescue? What! a prisoner? I am
even
The natural fool of fortune. Use me well;
180
You shall have ransom. Let me have surgeons;
I am cut to the brains. [No
rescue . . . brains: Am I now a prisoner with no hope of rescue? I
always seem to be a fool of ill fortune. Treat me well, and you
shall have
a ransom. Now, I need surgeons to repair my damaged brain.]
GENTLEMAN: You shall have any thing.
LEAR: No seconds? All myself? [Is there
no one to support me? Must I stand alone against you?]
Why this would make a man a man of salt,
185
To use his eyes for garden water-pots,
Ay, and laying autumn’s dust. [Why
this . . . dust: Why, this turn
of events would make a man cry salty tears to water his garden and
keep
down the autumn dust .]
GENTLEMAN: Good sir,—
LEAR: I will die bravely as a bridegroom. What! [I
will . . . bridegroom: I will die
bravely in the same way that a bridegroom dies to the world when
he
mates with his bride for the first time.]
I will be jovial: come, come; I am a king,
190
My masters, know you that?
GENTLEMAN: You are a royal one, and we obey
you.
LEAR: Then there’s life in it. Nay, an you get it, you
shall get it by running. Sa, sa, sa, sa. [Exit.
Attendants
follow. [Then
there's . . . sa: Then my life goes on. If you want me, you'll
have to run after me. Sa, sa, sa, sa.]
GENTLEMAN: A sight most pitiful in the meanest
wretch,
Past speaking of in a king! Thou hast one
daughter,
195
Who redeems nature from the general curse
Which twain have brought her to. [A
sight . . . her to: This sight
would be most pitiful in the lowest of men. But in a king it is
beyond
description! You have a daughter (Cordelia) who thwarts the curse
that her two sisters have brought upon the world.]
EDGAR: Hail, gentle sir!
GENTLEMAN: Sir, speed you: what’s your
will?
EDGAR: Do you hear aught [anything], sir, of a battle toward [about to
be fought]?
200
GENTLEMAN: Most sure and vulgar; every one hears that [hears of
it],
Which can distinguish sound.
EDGAR: But, by your favour,
How near’s the other army?
GENTLEMAN: Near, and on speedy foot; the main descry
205
Stands on the hourly thought. [the
main . . . thought: We expect to see the main force of the enemy
army any moment now.]
EDGAR: I thank you, sir: that’s all.
GENTLEMAN: Though that the queen on special cause is
here,
Her army is mov’d on. [Though
that . . . on: The queen is here for a special reason, and her
army is marching on.]
EDGAR: I thank you,
sir. [Exit gentleman.
210
GLOUCESTER: You ever-gentle gods, take my breath from
me:
Let not my worser spirit tempt me again
To die before you please! [You
. . . please: You ever-gentle gods, kill me before my spirit
tempts me again to commit suicide!]
EDGAR: Well pray you, father [pray
well, old man].
GLOUCESTER: Now, good sir, what are you?
215
EDGAR: A most poor man, made tame to [brought
low by]
fortune’s blows;
Who, by the art of known and feeling sorrows,
Am pregnant to good pity. Give me your hand,
I’ll lead you to some biding. [Who,
by . . . biding: By experiencing
great sorrow myself, I am full of pity for those who have also
suffered. Give me your hand. I'll lead you to a safe place to bide
your
time.]
GLOUCESTER: Hearty
thanks:
220
The bounty and the benison of heaven
To boot, and boot! [The
bounty . . . boot: I wish you the greatest bounty and blessing
that heaven can bestow.]
Enter OSWALD.
OSWALD: A proclaim’d prize! Most happy!
That eyeless head of thine was first fram’d
flesh
225
To raise my fortunes. Thou old unhappy traitor,
Briefly thyself remember: the sword is out
That must destroy thee. [A
proclaim'd . . . thee: Why, I've
come upon the traitor Gloucester! He's a great prize. If I kill
him, he
will raise my fortunes. Gloucester, my sword is out to destroy
you.]
GLOUCESTER: Now let thy friendly hand
Put strength enough to ’t. [EDGAR
interposes.
230[Now
let . . . to 't: You're a friend,
for you want to give me what I want: death. Put plenty of strength
behind the thrust of your sword. Edgar steps between Gloucester
and
Oswald.]
OSWALD: Wherefore [why], bold
peasant,
Dar’st thou support a publish’d traitor? Hence;
Lest that infection of his fortune take
Like hold on thee. Let go his arm. [Wherefore
. . . Why, bold peasant,
are you protecting a well-known traitor? You'd better get going
lest
the misfortune that infects him infects you too. Let go of his
arm.]
EDGAR: Chill not let go, zur, without vurther
’casion.
235[Chill
. . . 'casion: Edgar, still
disguised as a ragged beggar, speaks in a country dialect, saying
he
will not let go of Gloucester unless Oswald gives him a reasonable
explanation for his command.]
OSWALD: Let go, slave, or thou diest.
EDGAR: Good gentleman, go your gait, and let poor volk pass.
An chud ha’ bin zwaggered out of my life [If I
could be talked to death by your threats], ’twould not ha’ bin zo
long
as ’tis by a vortnight [I would have died a fortnight (two
weeks) ago].
Nay, come not near th’ old man; keep out, che
vor ye [I warn you], or ise [I will] try whether your costard [literally,
apple, but
used here as a synonym for head] or my ballow [walking
stick with a knob on the end; cudgel] be the harder.
Chill be plain with you. [I mean what I say.]
OSWALD: Out, dunghill!
EDGAR: Chill pick your teeth, zur. Come; no matter vor your
foins. [They fight and EDGAR knocks him
down. [Chill
. . . foins: I'll knock out
your teeth, sir. Come on. I don't care if you use your sword.
(They
fight, and Edgar strikes a mortal blow that knocks Oswald to the
ground.)]
OSWALD: Slave, thou hast slain me. Villain, take my
purse.
240
If ever thou wilt thrive, bury my body;
And give the letters which thou find’st about me
To Edmund Earl of Gloucester; seek him out
Upon the English party: O! untimely death.
[Dies.
EDGAR: I know thee well: a serviceable
villain;
245
As duteous to the vices of thy mistress [Goneril]
As badness would desire.
GLOUCESTER: What! is he dead?
EDGAR: Sit you down, father; rest you.
Let’s see his pockets: these letters that he speaks
of
250
May be my friends. He’s dead; I am only sorry
He had no other death's-man [no other man to kill him]. Let us
see:
Leave, gentle wax [the wax seal on the letter]; and, manners, blame us
not:
To know our enemies’ minds, we’d rip their
hearts;
Their papers, is more lawful.
255[To
know . . . lawful: To know what
our enemies are thinking, we would rip their hearts if we had no
other
way to get information from them. But learning their intentions
from
letters is more civil.]

Edgar
reads the letter.

Let
our reciprocal vows be remembered. You have many
opportunities to cut him off; if your will want not, time and
place
will be fruitfully offered. There is nothing done if he return the
conqueror; then am I the prisoner, and his bed my gaol [jail]; from the
loathed warmth whereof deliver me, and supply the place for your
labour.
Your—wife, so I would say—

Affectionate servant,

Goneril.

[Let our . . . say—: Let's make
sure
we keep the promises we made to each other. You will have many
opportunities to kill Albany at the right time and place. But if
he
returns as a conqueror, I will become a prisoner, and his bed
will be
my jail. Please deliver me from the loathed warmth of that bed
and then
take his place in that same bed.

Your affectionate servant and future wife,

Goneril.

O undistinguish’d space [space without limit] of woman’s
will!
260
A plot upon her virtuous husband’s life,
And the exchange my brother [and replacing him with
Edmund]! Here,
in the sands,
Thee I’ll rake up, the post unsanctified
Of murderous lechers; and in the mature time
With this ungracious paper strike the sight
265
Of the death-practis’d duke. For him ’tis well
That of thy death and business I can tell. [Here,
in the sands . . . can tell: I'll rake sand over the body of
Oswald, the unholy messenger (post
unsanctified, line 263)
who served murderous lechers. When the time is right, I will show
this
letter to Albany. It's a good thing I found out about the plot
against
him.]
GLOUCESTER: The king is mad: how stiff is my vile
sense,
That I stand up, and have ingenious feeling
Of my huge sorrows! Better I were distract:
270
So should my thoughts be sever’d from my griefs,
And woes by wrong imaginations lose
The knowledge of themselves. [Drums afar
off. [The
king is . . . themselves: The
king has lost his mind. I wish I could go mad too, but my senses
keep
me a sane man who feels his acute sorrows. If I were insane,
my thoughts would not center on my griefs. Griefs do not register
in
the minds of the mad.]
EDGAR: Give me your hand:
Far off, methinks, I hear the beaten drum.
275
Come, father, I’ll bestow you with a friend.
[Exeunt. [Exeunt:
Everyone leaves the stage.]

Act
4, Scene 7

A
tent in the French camp.
Enter CORDELIA, KENT, DOCTOR, and gentleman.

CORDELIA: O thou good Kent! how shall I live and
work
To match thy goodness? My life will be too
short,
And every measure fail me.
5[O
thou . . . fail me: Good Kent, how
can I live and work to be as good as you are? In the end, every
attempt
would fail me; my life would be too short to achieve such a lofty
goal.]
KENT: To be acknowledg’d, madam, is o’erpaid [to be
praised by you, madam, is to be overpaid].
All my reports go with the modest truth,
Nor more nor clipp’d, but so. [All
my . . . but so: I prefer that all the reports about me tell the
simple truth without exaggeration.]
CORDELIA: Be better suited:
These weeds are memories of those worser hours:
10
I prithee, put them off. [Be
better . . . off: Change into more
appropriate clothes. These rags you wear as a disguise are a
reminder
of earlier troubles. Please remove them.]
KENT: Pardon me, dear madam;
Yet to be known shortens my made intent:
My boon I make it that you know me not
Till time and I think meet.
15[Yet
to . . . meet: I can't remove
these rags just yet. To reveal myself now would give away the plot
against our enemies. But I will take them off when the time
right.]
CORDELIA: Then be ’t so, my good lord.—[To the
Doctor.] How does the king?
DOCTOR: Madam, sleeps still.
CORDELIA: O you kind gods,
Cure this great breach in his abused nature [cure
this great madness which afflicts his abused nature!]
The untun’d and jarring senses, O! wind up
20
Of this child-changed father! [The
untun'd . . . father: Restore his senses and change him back from
a child to a father.]
DOCTOR: So please your majesty
That we may wake the king? he hath slept long.
CORDELIA: Be govern’d by your knowledge, and
proceed
I’ the sway of your own will. Is he array’d [Is he
arrayed in his royal garments]?
25

Enter LEAR in his chair, carried by servants.
GENTLEMAN: Ay, madam; in the heaviness of
sleep,
We put fresh garments on him.
DOCTOR: Be by, good madam, when we do awake
him;
I doubt not of his temperance.
30[I
doubt . . . temperance: I believe he will remain calm.]
CORDELIA: Very well. [Music.
DOCTOR: Please you, draw near. Louder the music
there.
CORDELIA: O my dear father! Restoration,
hang
Thy medicine on my lips, and let this kiss
Repair those violent harms that my two sisters
35
Have in thy reverence made! [Restoration
. . . made: I hope that
kissing you will restore you to health and repair the injuries my
sisters inflicted on you.]
KENT: Kind and dear princess!
CORDELIA: Had you not been their father, these white flakes
[white hairs]
Had challeng’d pity of them [would have challenged them
to pity you].
Was this a face
To be expos’d against the warring winds?
40
To stand against the deep dread-bolted thunder?
In the most terrible and nimble stroke
Of quick cross lightning? to watch—poor perdu! [poor
lost man; poor hopeless man]—
With this thin helm [with thinning hair as your only
protection against the storm]? Mine enemy’s dog,
Though he had bit me, should have stood that
night
45
Against my fire. And wast thou fain, poor
father,
To hovel thee with swine and rogues forlorn,
In short and musty straw? Alack, alack! [Mine
enemy's . . . alack: I would
have taken in my enemy's dog, even if it had bitten me, and let
him sit
by the fireplace. And were you willing, poor father, to shelter
yourself in a straw hut with swine and rogues? Alas, alas!] ’Tis wonder that thy
life and wits at once
Had not concluded all. He wakes; speak to him.
50['Tis
wonder . . . all: It's a wonder that your ordeal didn't result in
the loss of your life.]
DOCTOR: Madam, do you [talk to him]; ’tis
fittest.
CORDELIA: How does my royal lord? How fares your
majesty?
LEAR: You do me wrong to take me out o’ the
grave; [You
. . . grave: You do me wrong to bring me back from the dead;] Thou art a soul in
bliss [heaven]; but I am bound
Upon a wheel of fire, that mine own tears
55
Do scald like molten lead.
CORDELIA: Sir, do you know me?
LEAR: You are a spirit, I know; when did you
die? CORDELIA:
Still, still, far wide. [Speaking to the doctor, Cordelia says her
father still has a troubled mind.]
DOCTOR: He’s scarce awake; let him alone
a-while.
60
LEAR: Where have I been? Where am I? Fair day-light? [Is it
day or night?]
I am mightily abus’d. [People mistreat me.] I should even die with
pity
To see another [to see another person undergoing
what I am]. I
know not what to say.
I will not swear these are my hands: let’s see;
I feel this pin prick. Would I were assur’d
65
Of my condition!
CORDELIA: O! look upon me, sir,
And hold your hands in benediction [in a
blessing] o’er
me.
No, sir, you must not kneel.
LEAR: Pray, do not
mock me:
70
I am a very foolish fond old man,
Fourscore and upward, not an hour more or less;
And, to deal plainly,
I fear I am not in my perfect mind.
Methinks I should know you and know this man [Kent];
75
Yet I am doubtful: for I am mainly ignorant
What place this is, and all the skill I have
Remembers not these garments; nor I know not
Where I did lodge last night. Do not laugh at
me;
For, as I am a man, I think this lady
80
To be my child Cordelia.
CORDELIA: And so I am, I am.
LEAR: Be your tears wet? Yes, faith. I pray, weep
not:
If you have poison for me, I will drink it.
I know you do not love me; for your sisters
85
Have, as I do remember, done me wrong:
You have some cause, they have not. [If
you have poison . . . have not: I
deserve no less than to be poisoned by you. I wronged you even
though
you were innocent, so there is no reason that you should love me.
Your
sisters treated me badly, but you did not. You have every reason
to hate me.]
CORDELIA: No cause, no cause. [I have
no cause to hate you.]
LEAR: Am I in France?
KENT: In your own
kingdom, sir.
90
LEAR: Do not abuse [deceive] me.
DOCTOR: Be comforted, good madam; the great
rage,
You see, is kill’d in him; and yet it is danger
To make him even o’er the time he has lost [to make
him try to understand the time he has lost].
Desire him to go in; trouble him no more
95
Till further settling [till his mind settles and he
becomes more like his old self].
CORDELIA: Will ’t please your highness
walk?
LEAR: You must bear with me.
Pray you now, forget and forgive: I am old and foolish.
[Exeunt LEAR, CORDELIA, doctor, and attendants. [Exeunt: The characters specified leave the stage.]
GENTLEMAN: Holds it true, sir, that the Duke
of
100
Cornwall was so slain?
KENT: Most certain, sir.
GENTLEMAN: Who is conductor of his people [Who is
commanding his troops]?
KENT: As ’tis said, the bastard son of
Gloucester.
GENTLEMAN: They say Edgar, his banished son, is with the
Earl
of Kent in Germany. [Kent is still in disguise.]
105
KENT: Report is changeable [questionable]. ’Tis time to look about;
the powers of the kingdom [the English troops] approach
apace.
GENTLEMAN: The arbitrement [battle] is like to be bloody. Fare
you well, sir. [Exit.
KENT: My point and period will be throughly
wrought,
Or well or ill, as this day’s battle’s fought.
[Exit. [My
point . . . fought: My plans and my own safety will depend, for
better or worse, on the outcome of today's fighting.]

Act
5, Scene 1

The British camp near
Dover.
Enter, with drum and colours [flag],
EDMUND, REGAN, officers, soldiers, and others.
EDMUND: Know of the duke if his last purpose
hold,
Or whether since he is advis’d by aught
To change the course; he’s full of alteration
5
And self-reproving; bring his constant pleasure. [To an
officer, who goes out. [Know
of . . . pleasure: Find out
whether the Duke of Albany's last decision remains in effect or
whether
he has changed his mind. He tends to vacillate, going back and
forth on
whether his decision is right or wrong. After you learn of his
plans,
come back and report them to me.]
REGAN: Our sister’s man is certainly miscarried.
[Our
sister's . . . miscarried: I
wonder what happened to Oswald, my sister's servant? Some
setback
must have prevented him from being here.] EDMUND: ’Tis to
be doubted, madam. ['Tis
. . . madam: I agree. I doubt that he will come.]
REGAN: Now, sweet lord,
You know the goodness I intend upon you:
10
Tell me, but truly, but then speak the truth,
Do you not love my sister?
EDMUND: In honour’d love. [Yes, in an honorable way.]
REGAN: But have you never found my brother’s
way
To the forefended place?
15[But
have . . . place: But have you never found your way to the
forbidden place, her bed?]
EDMUND: That thought abuses you. [That
thought is not worthy of you; that thought debases you.]
REGAN: I am doubtful that you have been
conjunct
And bosom’d with her, as far as we call hers. [I am
doubtful . . . hers: I'm just wondering whether you have been
intimate with her.]
EDMUND: No, by mine honour, madam.
REGAN: I never shall endure her: dear my
lord,
20
Be not familiar with her.
EDMUND: Fear me not.
She and the duke her husband [Goneril and her husband have
arrived]!
Enter with drums and colours, ALBANY, GONERIL, and soldiers.
GONERIL: [Aside.] I had rather lose the battle than
that
sister
25
Should loosen [come between] him [Edmund] and me.
ALBANY: Our very loving sister, well be-met [welcome].
Sir [Edmund],
this I heard, the king is come to his daughter,
With others; whom the rigour of our state
Forc’d to cry out. Where I could not be honest
30
I never yet was valiant: for this business,
It toucheth us, as France invades our land,
Not bolds the king, with others, whom, I fear,
Most just and heavy causes make oppose. [the
king is . . . oppose: King Lear
has come to his daughter. Other Englishmen have come here as well.
Their purpose is to protest the strictness with which I conduct
the
affairs of state. But I am simply following common sense and the
dictates of my conscience. I was never valiant—that is,
successful—when I could not be honest and honorable. As for the
business at hand, I strongly oppose the presence of French troops
on
English soil. I do so not because they support Lear or other
Englishmen
with just grievances against our government.]
EDMUND: Sir, you speak nobly.
35
REGAN: Why is this reason’d? [Why are
we wasting time talking on this subject?]
GONERIL: Combine together ’gainst the
enemy;
For these domestic and particular broils
Are not the question here. [Combine
. . . here: Let's unite our forces to fight the French. Domestic
quarrels are not an issue here.]
ALBANY: Let’s then
determine
40
With the ancient of war on our proceeding. [Let's
. . . proceeding: Let's then
confer with our ancients (experienced generals and other seasoned
commanders) to determine how to proceed.]
EDMUND: I shall attend [meet with] you presently [in a
little while]
at your tent.
REGAN: Sister, you’ll go with us [Regan
and Albany]?
GONERIL: No.
REGAN: ’Tis most convenient; pray you, go with
us.
45['Tis
. . . with us: It would be best
if you go with us. (Regan does not want Goneril to be alone, even
for a
few moments, with Edmund.)]
GONERIL: [Aside.] O, ho! I know the riddle [know
your deceptions].
[Aloud.] I will go.
Enter EDGAR, disguised.
EDGAR: If e’er [ever] your Grace had speech with
man so poor,
Hear me one word.
ALBANY: I’ll overtake
you. Speak. [Exeunt EDMUND, REGAN, GONERIL, officers,
soldiers,
and attendants.
50[Exeunt:
The characters specified leave the stage.][I'll
overtake . . . Speak: As Edmund, Regan, Goneril, and others leave,
Albany tells them that he will catch up with them.]
EDGAR: Before you fight the battle, ope [open] this
letter.
If you have victory, let the trumpet sound
For him that brought it: wretched though I seem,
I can produce a champion that will prove
What is avouched there. [Edgar found the letter on Oswald.
It tells of the plan to murder Albany.] If you
miscarry,
55
Your business of the world hath so an end,
And machination ceases [and all your plans will be for
naught].
Fortune love you!
ALBANY: Stay till I have read the letter.
EDGAR: I was forbid it.
When time shall serve, let but the herald cry,
60
And I’ll appear again.
ALBANY: Why, fare thee well: I will o’erlook [look
over] thy
paper. [Exit EDGAR.
Re-enter EDMUND.
EDMUND: The enemy’s in view; draw up your powers [troops]. [Edmund
gives Albany a message.]
Here is the guess of their true strength and
forces
65
By diligent discovery; but your haste
Is now urg’d on you.
ALBANY: We will greet the time. [I'll be
ready to engage the enemy when the time comes.] [Exit.
EDMUND: To both these sisters have I sworn my
love;
Each jealous [wary; suspicious] of the other, as the
stung
70
Are of the adder. Which of them shall I take?
Both? one? or neither? Neither can be enjoy’d
If both remain alive: to take the widow [Regan]
Exasperates, makes mad her sister Goneril;
And hardly shall I carry out my side [and
hardly can I take Goneril],
75
Her husband being alive. Now then, we’ll use
His countenance for the battle; which being done
Let her who would be rid of him devise
His speedy taking off. As for the mercy Which he intends to Lear,
and to Cordelia,
80
The battle done, and they within our power,
Shall never see his pardon; for my state
Stands on me to defend, not to debate. [Exit. [Now
then . . . to debate: Now then,
I'll use Albany to win the battle. Afterward, I'll let the sister
who
most wants to get rid of him devise a plan to kill him. As for the
mercy he intends for Lear and Cordelia—that is, his plan to spare
them
from harm after the battle—I'll see that they never get a pardon.
As a
defender of the English state, I must stand strong. This is not a
matter for debate.]

Act
5, Scene 2

A field between the two
camps.
Alarum within [battle sounds offstage]. Enter, with drum and
colours [flag], LEAR,
CORDELIA, and
their forces; and exeunt. Enter EDGAR and GLOUCESTER.[Exeunt:
The characters specified leave the stage.]
EDGAR: Here, father, take the shadow of this
tree
For your good host; pray that the right may
thrive.
If ever I return to you again,
5
I’ll bring you comfort. [Here,
father . . . thrive: Here, old
man, let the shadow of this tree be your host (that is, let the
shadow
of this tree shelter you). Pray that our armies win the battle.]
GLOUCESTER: Grace go with you, sir! [Exit
EDGAR.
Alarum; afterwards a retreat. Re-enter EDGAR.
EDGAR: Away, old man! give me thy hand:
away!
King Lear hath lost, he and his daughter ta’en [taken].
10
Give me thy hand; come on.
GLOUCESTER: No further, sir; a man may rot even
here.
EDGAR: What. In ill thoughts again? Men must
endure
Their going hence [away from a place], even as their coming
hither [to a place]: [Meaning: Men cannot choose when to
die any more than they can choose when to be born.]
Ripeness is all [We die when we are ripe for death,
although we don't know ahead of time when we'll be ripe.] Come on.
15
GLOUCESTER: And that’s true too.
[Exeunt. [Exeunt: Everyone leaves the stage.]

Act
5, Scene 3

The British camp, near
Dover.
Enter, in conquest, with drum and colours [flag], EDMUND; LEAR and
CORDELIA, prisoners; officers, soldiers, &c.
EDMUND: Some officers take them away: good
guard,
Until their greater pleasures first be known
That are to censure them.
5[Some
officers . . . censure them: We
need some officers to take them away. Guard them well until we
decide
what their punishment will be.]
CORDELIA: We are not the first
Who, with best meaning, have incurr’d the worst.[We
are . . . worst: We are not the first persons whose best
intentions produced the worst outcome.]
For thee, oppressed king, am I cast down;
Myself could else out-frown false Fortune’s
frown.
Shall we not see these daughters and these
sisters?
10[For
thee . . . sisters: I am cast
down for you, my oppressed father. I worry not for myself but for
you.
If only I were involved, I would simply wait until bad luck (Fortune's frown, line 9) turns into good luck.
Shall we not see Goneril and Regan?]
LEAR: No, no, no, no! Come, let’s away to
prison;
We two alone will sing like birds i’ the cage:
When thou dost ask me blessing, I’ll kneel down,
And ask of thee forgiveness: so we’ll live,
And pray, and sing, and tell old tales, and
laugh
15
At gilded butterflies, and hear poor rogues
Talk of court news; and we’ll talk with them
too,
Who loses and who wins; who’s in, who’s out;
And take upon ’s [upon us] the mystery of
things,
As if we were God’s spies: and we’ll wear out,
20
In a wall’d prison, packs and sets of great ones
That ebb and flow by the moon. [packs
. . . moon: While great rulers and leaders come and go like the
ebb and flow of the moon]
EDMUND: Take them away.
LEAR: Upon such sacrifices, my Cordelia,
The gods themselves throw incense. Have I caught
thee?
25[Upon
. . . thee: The gods bless you, Cordelia, for all the sacrifices
you have made. Have I embraced you?]
He that parts us shall bring a brand from
heaven,
And fire us hence like foxes. Wipe thine eyes; [He
that . . . foxes: Nothing can part
us except a firebrand from heaven that chases us from our den like
hunters chasing foxes.]
The goujeres [venereal disease] shall devour them [anyone
who parts us],
flesh and fell [skin],
Ere [before]
they shall make us weep: we’ll see ’em starve
first.
Come. [Exeunt LEAR and CORDELIA, guarded.
30[Exeunt:
The characters specified leave the stage.]
EDMUND: Come hither, captain; hark,
Take thou this note; [Giving a paper.] go follow them
to prison:
One step I have advanc’d thee; if thou dost
As this instructs thee, thou dost make thy way
To noble fortunes; know thou this, that men
35Are as the time is; to be
tender-minded
Does not become a sword; thy great employment
Will not bear question; either say thou’lt do
’t,
Or thrive by other means. [One
step . . . other means: I have
already promoted you. If you carry out my instructions faithfully,
you
will receive even greater rewards. Know this: that the times we
live in
require you to be stalwart and strong, like a sword, not
tender-minded.
Be aware that you may not question the wisdom of your task. Either
say
yes to it or find other means of livelihood.]
OFFICER: I’ll do ’t, my lord.
40
EDMUND: About it; and write happy when thou hast done.
Mark,—I say, instantly,
and carry it so
As I have set it down. [About
. . . it down: Then go about
your task. Be satisfied with your work when you complete the job.
Begin
without delay and follow the instructions I have written down.]
OFFICER: I cannot draw a cart nor eat dried
oats;
If it be man’s work I will do it. [Exit.
45
Flourish [Music, usually played by trumpets, heralding
the entrance of royals, nobles, or other important people]. Enter ALBANY,
GONERIL, REGAN, officers, and attendants.
ALBANY: Sir, you have show’d to-day your valiant
strain,
And fortune led you well; you have the captives
Who were the opposites of this day’s strife; [you
have . . . strife: You have taken captives from the opposite
side.]
We do require them of you, so to use them
50
As we shall find their merits and our safety
May equally determine. [so
to . . . determine: So that we may treat them according to their
merits without jeopardizing our safety.]
EDMUND: Sir, I thought it fit
To send the old and miserable king
To some retention, and appointed guard;
55
Whose age has charms in it, whose title more,
To pluck the common bosom on his side,
And turn our impress’d lances in our eyes
Which do command them. With him I sent the queen; My reason all the same; and
they are ready
60
To-morrow, or at further space, to appear
Where you shall hold your session. At this time
[Sir,
I thought . . . session: Sir, I
thought it fit to imprison, under guard, the old and miserable
king. I
was worried that his supposed wisdom as an old man and his royal
title
might be enough to lure commoners, including citizens and
soldiers, to
his cause. I sent his daughter Cordelia, the Queen of France, with
him
to prison. They are ready to appear tomorrow or later for a public
hearing.]
We sweat and bleed; the friend hath lost his
friend,
And the best quarrels, in the heat, are curs’d
By those that feel their sharpness;
65
The question of Cordelia and her father
Requires a fitter place. [We
sweat . . . fitter place: Our men
sweat and bleed from the battle. Friend has lost friend. Our
suffering
soldiers curse war even though our cause was just in waging it. We
need
a better place to decide what to do with Cordelia and Lear.]
ALBANY: Sir, by your patience,
I hold you but a subject of this war,
Not as a brother.
70[Sir
. . . brother: Sir, I regard you as an underling who should not
give orders.]
REGAN: That’s as we list to grace him: [That's
. . . him: It's up to me to decide his status.] Methinks our pleasure
might have been demanded,
Ere you had spoke so far. He led our powers,
Bore the commission of my place and person;
The which immediacy may well stand up,
75
And call itself your brother. [Methinks
. . . brother: I think you
should have consulted me before you spoke so ill of him. Consider
that he led our troops into battle and carried out my orders. I
think
he deserves the right to be regarded as your equal.]
GONERIL: Not so hot;
In his own grace he doth exalt himself
More than in your addition. [Not
so . . . addition: You're so
passionate about this matter because you want us to think you
played a
role in his success. The truth is, he exalted himself on his own
merits. He doesn't need your praise, and we don't need to hear how
he
represented your "place and person" (line 74) on the battlefield.]
REGAN: In my
rights,
80
By me invested, he compeers the best. [In
my . . . best: I'm the one who
invested him with a battlefield commission. It was in my name that
he
fought and earned the right to be recognized as one of the best of
our
soldiers.]
GONERIL: That were the most, if he should husband you. [He would
certainly be your tool if he married you.]
REGAN: Jesters do oft prove prophets. [Jesters
. . . prophets: Your statement, spoken in jest, could actually
foretell what's to come: the marriage of Edmund and me.]
GONERIL: Holla, holla! [Hold up;
not so fast]
That eye that told you so look’d but a-squint.
85[That
eye . . . a-squint: That eye that told you so must have distorted
vision.]
REGAN: Lady, I am not well; else I should
answer
From a full-flowing stomach. General,
Take thou my soldiers, prisoners, patrimony;
Dispose of them, of me; the walls are thine;
Witness the world, that I create thee here
90
My lord and master. [Lady
. . . master: Goneril, I'm not
feeling well. If I were, I
would thrash you verbally. Edmund, take my soldiers, prisoners,
and
inheritance. Do what you want with them—and with me—without any
walls
that limit your power. As the world is my witness, you are now my
lord
land master.]
GONERIL: Mean you to enjoy him? [Are you
planning to go to bed with him?]
ALBANY:
The let-alone lies not in your good will.
[Goneril, it is not within
your rights to approve or disapprove of Regan's or Edmund's
intentions.]
EDMUND: Nor in thine, lord.
ALBANY: Half-blooded
fellow, yes. [Yes it is, you bastard.]
95
REGAN: [To EDMUND.] Let the drum strike, and prove my
title thine. [Let the drum strike to signal a duel for me
between you and a challenger.]
ALBANY: Stay yet; hear reason. Edmund, I arrest
thee
On capital treason [offense punishable by execution]; and, in thy
arrest,
This gilded serpent. [Pointing to GONERIL.] For your
claim, fair sister [fair sister-in-law, Regan],
I bar it in the interest of my wife;
100
’Tis she is sub-contracted ['tis she who is engaged] to this
lord,
And I, her husband, contradict your bans [forbid
you to marry Edmund].
If you will marry, make your love to me,
My lady is bespoke [pledged to marry Edmund].
GONERIL: An
interlude! [Nonsense! They must be putting on
a play.]
105
ALBANY: Thou art arm’d, Gloucester [Edmund]; let the trumpet sound
:
If none appear to prove upon thy person
Thy heinous, manifest, and many treasons,
There is my pledge; [Throws down a glove.] I’ll prove
it on thy heart,
Ere I taste bread, thou art in nothing less
110
Than I have here proclaim’d thee. [If
none . . . thee: If no one appears
to testify to your treasonous activities, I will challenge you to
a
duel. There, I throw down my glove. (Throwing down a glove was a
sign
that one man challenged another man to a fight. The glove—or
gauntlet,
as it was called—was often overlaid with metal for protection in
battle. Some gauntlets were made of thick leather or fabric.]
REGAN: Sick! O sick! [O, I think I'm sick.]
GONERIL:
[Aside.] If not, I’ll ne’er trust medicine. [If
you're not sick,
Goneril says to herself, I'll never again put my trust in deadly
potions. (Goneril apparently has given Regan a poisonous drink).]
EDMUND: There’s my exchange: [Throws down a
glove.] [By throwing down his gauntlet, Edmund accepts
Albany's challenge.] What in the world he is
That names me traitor, villain-like he lies.
115
Call by thy trumpet: he that dares approach,
On him, on you, who not? I will maintain
My truth and honour firmly. [what
in . . . firmly: Whoever calls
me a traitor is a liar. Sound the trumpet. Anyone who dares to
approach
me will face my sword as I defend my honor.]
ALBANY: A herald, ho! [Call
forth a herald to read a proclamation.]
EDMUND: A herald, ho! a
herald!
120
ALBANY: Trust to thy single virtue; for thy
soldiers,
All levied in my name, have in my name
Took their discharge. [Trust
to . . . discharge: You must rely only on yourself. Your soldiers
are gone.]
REGAN: My sickness grows upon me.
ALBANY: She is not well; convey her to my tent. [Exit
REGAN, led.
125
Come hither, herald,
Enter a herald.
Let the trumpet sound,—
And read out this.
OFFICER: Sound, trumpet! [A trumpet
sounds.
130
HERALD: If any man of quality or degree within the lists of
the army will maintain upon Edmund, supposed Earl of Gloucester,
that
he is a manifold traitor, let him appear at the third sound of the
trumpet. He is bold in his defence.
EDMUND: Sound! [First
trumpet.
HERALD: Again! [Second
trumpet.
HERALD: Again! [Third trumpet.
[Trumpet answers within [offstage].

Enter EDGAR, armed, with a trumpet before him.
135
ALBANY: Ask him his purposes, why he
appears
Upon this call o’ the trumpet.
HERALD: What are you?
Your name? your quality? and why you answer
This present summons?
140
EDGAR: Know, my name is lost;
By treason’s tooth bare-gnawn and canker-bit: [Know
. . . canker-bit: Know that Edmund's treason gnawed away and
ruined my good name.]
Yet am I noble as the adversary
I come to cope [deal with].
ALBANY: Which is that
adversary?
145
EDGAR: What’s he that speaks for Edmund Earl of
Gloucester?
EDMUND: Himself: what sayst thou to him?
EDGAR: Draw thy sword,
That, if my speech offend a noble heart,
Thy arm may do thee justice; here is mine:
150Behold, it is the privilege of mine
honours,
My oath, and my profession: I protest, [if
my speech. . . profession: If I am wrongly
accusing you, draw you sword and let it give you justice. Here is
my sword, which
represents my honor, my good word, and my profession as a knight.]
Maugre [in spite of] thy strength, youth, place [rank], and eminence [renown
as a warrior],
Despite thy victor sword and fire-new fortune,
Thy valour and thy heart, thou art a traitor,
155[Despite
. . . traitor: Despite your
battlefield success, your good luck, your courage, and your high
emotions, I declare that you are a traitor.]
False to thy gods, thy brother, and thy father,
Conspirant ’gainst [conspiring enemy of] this high illustrious
prince [Albany],
And, from the extremest upward of thy head
To the descent and dust below thy foot,
A most toad-spotted [poisonous] traitor. Say thou ‘No,’ [If you
deny these charges]
160
This sword, this arm, and my best spirits are
bent
To prove upon thy heart, whereto I speak,
Thou liest.
EDMUND: In wisdom I should ask thy name;
But since thy outside looks so fair and
war-like,
165
And that thy tongue some say of breeding breathes [and
since you speak like someone with good breeding],
What safe and nicely I might well delay
By rule of knighthood, I disdain and spurn; [What
safe . . . spurn: What the rules
of knighthood would allow me to do—refuse to fight a man whose
name I
do not know—I disdain and spurn.]
Back do I toss these treasons to thy head,
With the hell-hated lie o’erwhelm thy heart,
170
Which, for they yet glance by and scarcely
bruise,
This sword of mine shall give them instant way,
Where they shall rest for ever. Trumpets, speak!
[Alarums. They fight. EDMUND falls.
[Back
do . . . for ever: I toss your
accusations back to you. May your lies stop the beating of your
heart.
But what you say against me scarcely bruises me. Nevertheless, my
sword
shall silence your tongue.]
ALBANY: Save him, save him!
GONERIL: This is practice,
Gloucester:
175
By the law of arms thou wast not bound to answer
An unknown opposite; thou art not vanquish’d,
But cozen’d and beguil’d. [This
is . . . begui'd: This is
a trick, Edmund. By the laws of knighthood, you were not bound to
fight
a man not known to you. You are not conquered, but deceived and
deluded.]
ALBANY: Shut your mouth, dame,
Or with this paper shall I stop it. Hold, sir;
180
Thou worse than any name, read thine own evil:
No tearing, lady; I perceive you know it. [Gives the letter
to EDMUND. [Or
with . . . you know it: Or with
this letter I'll cover your mouth. You, Edmund—you who are more
base
than any other man—read of your evil in this letter. And don't
tear up
the letter, lady. I realize you know what's in it.] GONERIL: Say, if
I do, the laws are mine, not thine:
Who can arraign me for ’t? [Exit. [Say,
if . . . for 't: What if I do tear it up? You can't arrest me. I'm
the one who rules here.]
ALBANY: Most
monstrous!
185
Know’st thou this paper? [Most
. . . paper: Most monstrous Edmund, do you recognize this letter?]
EDMUND: Ask me not what I know.
ALBANY:
Go after her [Go after Goneril, who has exited (line 184)]: she’s
desperate; govern her. [Exit an officer.
EDMUND: What you have charg’d me with, that have I
done,
And more, much more; the time will bring it out:
190
’Tis past, and so am I. But what art thou [Edgar]
That hast this fortune on me? [who have brought me ill
fortune by defeating me]. If thou’rt noble,
I do forgive thee.
EDGAR: Let’s exchange charity [forgiveness].
I am no less in blood than thou art, Edmund;
195
If more, the more thou hast wrong’d me.[I am
. . . wrong'd me: I have as much nobility in my blood as you do,
Edmund. Maybe more. If I have more, you have wronged me.]
My name is Edgar, and thy father’s son.
The gods are just, and of our pleasant vices
Make instruments to plague us: [and
of . . . plague us: And use our faults to plague us]
The dark and vicious place where thee he got
200
Cost him his eyes. [The
adultery he committed that resulted in your birth ultimately cost
him his eyes.]
EDMUND: Thou hast spoken right, ’tis true;
The wheel is come full circle; I am here.
ALBANY: Methought thy very gait did
prophesy
A royal nobleness: I must embrace thee:
205
Let sorrow split my heart, if ever I
Did hate thee or thy father. [Methought
. . . father: I thought
that the dignified way you carried yourself suggested you were of
noble
blood. I must embrace you. Let sorrow break my heart if I ever
hated
you or your father.]
EDGAR: Worthy prince, I know ’t.
ALBANY: Where have you hid yourself?
How have you known the miseries of your father?
210
EDGAR: By nursing them, my lord. List [listen
to] a brief
tale;
And, when ’tis told, O! that my heart would burst [and when
I've told the tale, my heart will surely break],
The bloody proclamation to escape
That follow’d me so near,—O! our lives’
sweetness,
That we the pain of death would hourly die
215
Rather than die at once!—taught me to shift
Into a madman’s rags, to assume a semblance
That very dogs disdain’d: and in this habit
Met I my father with his bleeding rings,
heir precious stones new lost; became his guide,
220
Led him, begg’d for him, sav’d him from despair;
[The
bloody proclamation . . .
from despair: I ran off to escape the bloody proclamation that
condemned me to death and to lose the pursuers following me so
near. O,
because we value the sweetness of life, we are willing to endure
dire
peril every hour rather than face death. To survive this ordeal, I
disguised myself in rags to assume the likeness of a lowly beggar
whom
even dogs despised. In this disguise, I happened upon my father,
who
had bloody rings around his empty eye sockets. I guided him along
paths, begged for him, and saved him from killing himself out of
despair.]
Never,—O fault!—reveal’d myself unto him,
Until some half hour past, when I was arm’d; [Never
. . . arm'd: I never revealed
my true identity to him—and that was a fault—until a half-hour
ago,
when I was wearing armor.]
Not sure, though hoping, of this good success,
I ask’d his blessing, and from first to last
225
Told him my pilgrimage: but his flaw’d heart,—
Alack! too weak the conflict to support;
’Twixt two extremes of passion, joy and grief,
Burst smilingly. [Not
sure . . . smilingly: Not sure
whether I was doing the right thing, but hoping for success, I
asked
for his blessing. Then I told him everything that happened to me
since
the time I was condemned. But his weak heart gave out because he
could
not withstand either the joy of reuniting with me or the grief of
all
that had come to pass.]
EDMUND: This speech of yours hath mov’d
me,
230
And shall perchance do good; but speak you on;
You look as you had something more to say.
ALBANY: If there be more, more woeful, hold it
in;
For I am almost ready to dissolve [cry;
break down],
Hearing of this.
235
EDGAR: This would have seem’d a period
To such as love not sorrow; but another,
To amplify too much, would make much more,
And top extremity. [This
would . . . extremity:
This would have seemed to be a time to focus on love, not sorrow.
Moreover, another account of sorrow would be going overboard. (But
Edgar recites the account anyway, in the following lines.]
Whilst I was big in clamour came there a man,
240
Who, having seen me in my worst estate,
Shunn’d my abhorr’d society; but then, finding
Who ’twas that so endur’d, with his strong arms
He fasten’d on my neck, and bellow’d out
As he’d burst heaven; threw him on my father;
245
Told the most piteous tale of Lear and him
That ever ear receiv’d; which in recounting
His grief grew puissant, and the strings of life
Began to crack: twice then the trumpet sounded,
And there I left him tranc’d.
250[Whilst
I . . . him tranc'd: While I
was bemoaning my fate, sobbing loudly, a man appeared. Seeing the
rags
I was wearing, he at first shunned me. But then, after finding out
more
about me, he threw his arms around my neck, cried out, and threw
himself on my father (Gloucester). Then he told a piteous tale
about
himself and Lear. In telling the tale, he exhibited powerful
grief. His
heartstrings were beginning to break. After a trumpet sounded
twice, I
left this man, who was in a trance.]
ALBANY: But who was this?
EDGAR: Kent, sir, the banish’d Kent; who in
disguise
Follow’d his enemy king, and did him service
Improper for a slave. [and
did . . . slave: And served the king with more duty and humility
than a slave]
Enter a gentleman, with a bloody knife.
255
GENTLEMAN: Help, help! O help!
EDGAR: What kind of help?
ALBANY: Speak, man.
EDGAR: What means that bloody knife?
GENTLEMAN: ’Tis hot, it
smokes;
260
It came even from the heart of—O! she’s dead.
ALBANY: Who dead? speak, man.
GENTLEMAN: Your lady [Goneril], sir, your lady: and her
sister [Regan]
By her [Goneril] is poison’d; she confesses it.
EDMUND: I was contracted [engaged] to them both: all three [of us]
265
Now marry in an instant. [all
three . . . instant: Death will marry all three of us]
EDGAR: Here comes Kent.
ALBANY: Produce the bodies, be they alive or
dead:
This judgment of the heavens, that makes us
tremble,
Touches us not with pity. [Exit gentleman.
270

Enter KENT.
O! is this he?
The time will not allow the compliment
Which very manners urges.
KENT: I am
come
275
To bid my king and master aye good-night;
Is he not here?
ALBANY: Great thing of us forgot!
Speak, Edmund, where’s the king? and where’s
Cordelia?
Seest thou this object, Kent? [The bodies of GONERIL and
REGAN
are brought in.
280
KENT: Alack! why thus?
EDMUND: Yet Edmund was belov’d:
The one the other poison’d for my sake,
And after slew herself.
ALBANY: Even so. Cover their faces.
285
EDMUND: I pant for life [I am dying]: some good I mean to
do
Despite of mine own nature [my inclination to do evil]. Quickly
send,
Be brief in it, to the castle; for my writ
Is on the life of Lear and on Cordelia.
Nay, send in time.
290[for
my . . . in time: For I have written an order to execute Lear and
Cordelia]
ALBANY: Run, run! O run!
EDGAR: To whom, my lord? Who has the office?
send
Thy token of reprieve. [To
whom have you given the power of execution? Send to this person a
sign proving that you are canceling the death sentence.]
EDMUND: Well thought on: take my sword,
Give it the captain.
295
ALBANY: Haste thee, for thy life. [Exit
EDGAR.
EDMUND: He hath commission from my wife and
me
To hang Cordelia in the prison, and
To lay the blame upon her own despair,
That she fordid herself.
300
[He hath . . . fordid herself: The captain has orders to hang
Cordelia
in her place of confinement, then do whatever is necessary to make
it
look as if she killed herself.]
ALBANY: The gods defend her! Bear him hence awhile.
[EDMUND is borne off.
Enter LEAR, with CORDELIA dead in his arms; EDGAR, officer, and
others.
LEAR: Howl, howl, howl, howl! O! you are men of
stones:
Had I your tongues and eyes, I’d use them so
That heaven’s vaults should crack. She’s gone for
ever.
305
I know when one is dead, and when one lives;
She’s dead as earth. Lend me a looking-glass;
If that her breath will mist or stain the stone,
Why, then she lives. [Howl
. . . she lives: Howl, you men
of stones. Cry for Cordelia. If I had your tongues and eyes, I
would
send up a complaint that would make the vault of heaven crack.
She's
dead. But lend me a mirror to double-check whether a breath of
life
remains in her. If the mirror mists when held to her mouth, it
means
she still breathes.]
KENT: Is this the
promis’d end? [Is this the end of the world?]
310
EDGAR: Or image of that horror? [Or an
image of the horror that's to come?]
ALBANY: Fall and cease [Is the whole world to end]?
LEAR: This feather stirs [from her breath]; she lives! if it be
so,
It is a chance which does redeem all sorrows
That ever I have felt.
315
KENT: [Kneeling.] O, my good master!
LEAR: Prithee, away.
EDGAR: ’Tis noble Kent, your friend.
LEAR: A plague upon you, murderers, traitors
all!
I might have sav’d her; now, she’s gone for
ever!
320
Cordelia, Cordelia! stay a little. Ha!
What is ’t thou sayst? Her voice was ever soft,
Gentle and low, an excellent thing in woman.
I kill’d the slave that was a hanging thee. [I .
. . hanging thee: I killed your executioner.]
Off. ’Tis true, my lord, he did.
325
LEAR: Did I not, fellow? [I did, didn't I? How about
that!]
I have seen the day, with my good biting falchion [short
sword with a broad blade]
I would have made them skip [jump and dance]: I am old
now,
And these same crosses [of old age] spoil me. Who are
you?
Mine eyes are not o’ the best: I’ll tell you
straight.
330
KENT: If fortune brag of two she lov’d and
hated,
One of them we behold [I am the unlucky—or
unfortunate—one].
LEAR: This is a dull sight. Are you not
Kent?
KENT: The same,
Your servant Kent. Where is your servant Caius [the name
Kent used while in disguise]?
335
LEAR: He’s a good fellow, I can tell you
that;
He’ll strike, and quickly too. He’s dead and
rotten.
KENT: No, my good lord; I am the very man—
LEAR: I’ll see that straight [I'll
understand, but tell me more].
KENT: That, from your first of difference and
decay,
340
Have follow’d your sad steps.
LEAR: You are welcome hither [here].
KENT: Nor no man else [no one else followed you as
I did]; all’s
cheerless, dark, and deadly:
Your eldest daughters have fordone themselves [have
brought about their own demises],
And desperately are dead.
345
LEAR: Ay, so I think.
ALBANY: He knows not what he says, and vain it
is
That we present us to him. [He
knows . . . to him: I don't think he understands what he is
saying. Therefore, it is useless to try to converse with him.]
EDGAR: Very bootless [useless].
Enter an officer.
350

Off. Edmund is dead, my lord.
ALBANY: That’s but a trifle here.
You lords and noble friends, know our intent;
What comfort to this great decay may come [What
. . . come: What comfort we can give the king to relieve his
problems]
Shall be applied: for us [me], we [I] will
resign,
355
During the life of this old majesty,
To him our absolute power:—[To EDGAR and KENT.] You, to your
rights [all your rights—including properties and titles—will
be restored];
With boot [gains; advantages; reparations; amends] and such addition as your
honours
Have more than merited. All friends shall taste
The wages of their virtue, and all foes
360
The cup of their deservings. O! see, see!
LEAR: And my poor fool [my poor Cordelia] is hang’d! No, no, no
life!
Why should a dog, a horse, a rat, have life,
And thou no breath at all? Thou’lt come no more [You will
not come to me anymore],
Never, never, never, never, never!
365
Pray you, undo this button [please undo this button for me]: thank you,
sir.
Do you see this? Look on her, look, her lips,
Look there, look there! [Dies. [King
Lear dies.]
EDGAR: He faints!—my lord, my lord!
KENT: Break, heart; I prithee, break [My heart
breaks].
370
EDGAR: Look up, my lord [spoken to Lear in an attempt
to arouse him].
KENT: Vex not his ghost: O! let him pass; he hates
him
That would upon the rack of this tough world
Stretch him out longer.
EDGAR: He is gone,
indeed.
375
KENT: The wonder is he hath endur’d so
long:
He but usurp’d his life [he cheated death for a little
extra time on earth].
ALBANY: Bear them from hence [here]. Our present
business
Is general woe. [To KENT and EDGAR.] Friends of my
soul, you twain [two]
Rule in this realm, and the gor’d state sustain.
380[and
. . . sustain: And make sure our troubled country survives]
KENT: I have a journey, sir, shortly to
go;
My master calls me, I must not say no. [I
have . . . say no: The end of my life is near. King Lear calls out
for me to join him. I must not say no.]
ALBANY: The weight of this sad time we must
obey;
Speak what we feel, not what we ought to say.
The oldest hath borne most [has suffered the most]: we that are
young,
385
Shall never see so much [so much suffering], nor live so long.
[Exeunt, with a dead march. [Exeunt:
Everyone leaves the stage.]